


show me what i'm looking for

by bodhirookes



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Libraries, M/M, also this is kind of a slow burn??? just bc these two are morons, and keith is always on the verge of having a breakdown, and quinta just wants to fire all of them, basically two idiots messing around 24/7, sara is the cutest wingwoman ever to exist, tbh jake is my favorite character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-04-16 02:32:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 53,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14154759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodhirookes/pseuds/bodhirookes
Summary: When Shane strides out from the history shelves, he turns towards the back table and hopes to see the usual piles of books and forgotten pages.What he gets instead is all those books and notes and some guy picking carefully through that goddamnSasquatchbook and scribbling something down on one of the sheets Shane has probably put away and-Shane momentarily loses his mind. Instead of taking the common sense route and hauling ass back to the help desk to get Sara or to hide, his stupid, long legs walk him up to the table and his stupid, smart aleck mouth makes him blurt out into the otherwise quiet library:“If you think that the ghost of Richard Ramirez haunts the Cecil Hotel, you’re on crack cocaine.”Or, Shane works at his university's library and, through a series of unfortunate events, meets Ryan Bergara, who believes in ghosts, not using a productive organization system for his notes, and that Amelia Earhart was abducted by aliens. Maybe most unfortunately, all of these things make Shane fall for him faster than Ryan can say: "The Whaley House is haunted."





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!!!! This is my first time writing for Idiot #1 and Idiot #2 and I’m super excited about it!!! I just got sucked into the hell hole of Buzzfeed Unsolved about a month ago now?? And I flew through all of Supernatural and True Crime and the post mortems so now I’m writing and reading fic by the handfuls to fill the hole in my heart. Ruining History is also a good healer in our time of need. 
> 
> The ep of Debatable where they debate over cats and dogs and Keith loses his shit inspired this first little scene! Enjoy! (I would also marry Keith in .5 seconds if he didn’t already have an amazing and beautiful wife *sigh*) 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t actually think that Ryan and Shane bone irl yall, I’m just a gay little baby who likes to imagine that in some alternate universe these two canoodle in haunted houses and kiss during dumb horror movies fsdjjjs so please do not get mad at me or indict me 
> 
> Also for anyone who has re-read this: thank you, and I'm sorry I keep changing the summary, I just can't decide how to best sum this story up lmfao
> 
> Title comes from the song Show Me What I’m Looking For by Carolina Liar

Working with Sara and Keith is a little like midnight McDonald’s- sometimes really good and sometimes the worst thing in the entire world.

Shane and Sara applied at the same time, and back then, Shane thought that working in the campus library with his best friend was the best decision he’d ever made. And at first, it was; they hung out at work like they did outside of work, but just at a quieter volume. But then their boss hired Keith Habersberger, and Keith is a carbon copy of Shane but with the volume turned _way_ up, and there’s never any telling if the three of them will get through a shift together without Keith yelling or Shane yelling back and Sara egging them both on.

Tonight, it’s an argument about the best type of house pet.

“Cats are clearly the superior pet,” Keith is saying, huge hands flapping away. “You could literally leave the country for a week and just leave them a clean litter box and a big dish of food and some water and they’d be fine.”

“Or, you could have a snake,” Shane counters, not looking away from his computer. “Which might only require you to feed them once before you leave the country and then once again when you return.”

“Okay, well, if you need someone to come and check up on the snake, how many people do you know that would actually be cool with coming over and getting close with one?”

“Eugene doesn’t give a shit about anything. I bet he would do it if I gave him $20 or a giftcard to that expensive place downtown. Garrett is also pretty dead inside, so I bet he’d do it for the same price. Ned is a crazy fucker, so he would volunteer to do it for me if I asked around- I _bet_ _you_ that $20.”

“What if it got out and they had to put it back in the tank? There’s a huge difference between feeding a snake or checking on it and lifting it up and putting it in its tank.”

“What if-” Shane does look over at Keith then, and can see Sara grinning at them out of the corner of his eye. “I just don’t leave the country? So no one has to come over and deal with my snake? What about that, Keith?”

Keith splutters. “That’s a fucking cop-out, dude, you can’t just change the conditions of the argument to make it fit your blasé attitude-”

“I think you’re just getting frustrated because snakes are better than cats in every aspect, and all you can think to argue with is the fact that some people find snakes ‘scary’. It wouldn’t matter since, as previously stated, the snake would be mine, and we’re friends with Ned Fulmer.”

Keith looks like he’s two seconds away from losing his shit, and Sara isn’t even trying to hide that she’s cracking up behind a tattered copy of _The Prisoner of Azkaban_ . Shane gives Keith a look like _What else do you got for me?_ and Keith is glaring back like _I’m going to body slam you into the cookbooks, Madej_ , and really, it’s just another Thursday night.

Keith launches off into an entire new aspect of the argument, claiming that a lot of the charm of cats is how soft and warm they are, and Shane comes back with the fact that snakes have healing powers when used in massage-related settings, and it almost results in Keith throwing a stapler at Shane’s head. Sara interveens a little to tell them to calm down, but their boss arrives before Sara can convince Keith not to start crying or throwing papers around the entire library.

“What’s the problem this time?” Quinta asks them, eyebrows raised.

Keith flounders for a minute, until Shane decides to come to both of their rescues. “Keith is trying to tell me that cats are better than snakes, and I’m just schooling him on why he’s a complete moron.”

“Cats are the superior pet for so many reasons, and snakes are weird and kill-y and cold-”

“I think you’re both wrong,” Quinta stops Keith. “Dogs are obviously the best pet. Where the hell’s your argument against that?”

They both stare up at her, and then at each other, minds completely blank. Sara blatantly stares at the three of them over the top of her book, and if Shane wasn’t trying to save his life, he’d be enamored by how cute she looks with her wild curls and wrinkled nose.

After a very awkward pause, Shane decides to abandon ship.

“Hey Quinta, I think there are some kids over there trying to fight it out over an Econ book.”

Quinta looks away for a few seconds to where Shane pointed, and Shane takes the opportunity to scramble out of his seat and bolt. He can hear Sara laughing and Quinta hissing for him to come back, but he knows the threats are empty, so he keeps heading towards the back of the library. There are endless rows of huge, wooden shelves that hide him from sight easily despite his tall stature, and doesn’t stop running until he makes it to the last couple of shelves. He knows he’s by the history section, since it’s where he goes the most when running away from Keith, Sara, and/or Quinta, and he flings himself down in front of the section containing all of their presidential biographies. There’s a girl staring brokenly at the section on early American history and she hardly spares Shane a defeated glance. He can relate.

Shane sits on the floor for five minutes, waiting for Quinta to come and yell at him or Keith to bodily drag him back to the help desk, but no one shows up. He can vaguely hear Keith’s loud, cartoonish voice floating down the aisles, but never hears it come close to where he’s sitting, so Shane counts it as a win. And after a few more minutes, he unfolds himself and gets up. He decides to grab a book and hide until Sara finds him or his shift ends.

He ends up selecting a book on Julius Caesar and his various triumphs and catastrophes, and then creeps towards the other end of the aisle to where the tables are for students to sit at. He’s deeply relieved to not find Sara already at one, waiting to punch him in the stomach and take him back up front.

But he isn’t relieved to find one of the tables a complete mess. Usually, there are a few wrappers from snacks left behind on a table, or a leftover book from a student studying, but the table that Shane plans to hide under is pretty much destroyed. There’s about ten books spread out across it, some opened and some closed, and a few random pieces of paper sit under a book opened up to ‘The most famous Sasquatch sighting in history’. Shane guesses, based on the fact that the top piece of paper stops in the middle of a sentence, that whoever made this mess probably lost track of time and had to leave for class in a hurry.

He sighs through his nose, and sets his book off to the side; instead of immediately crawling under the table to hide, Shane does his obligated job duty and begins to collect the books and put them back where they go. Seven out of the ten books belong to the Myths & Legends portion of the university’s nonfiction section, and the other three belong to the True Crime section. As he’s putting them away, he takes note of the various titles- _A Field Guide to Demons, Vampires, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits, Ghost: Investigating the Other Side,_ just plain old _Sasquatch_ \- and snorts quietly to himself. The books about true crime look kind of cool, including the one on the Zodiac Killer titled _The Most Dangerous Animal of All,_ but all of the books about supernatural beings and legends look like-

Complete bullshit.

Shane would almost think that this person was reading them for kicks or for some ridiculous English class, but after he looks at the notes stuck under the _Sasquatch_ book, he’s pretty sure this person actually believes in all of it. Their notes are a messy scrawl of: _look into visiting the Whaley House?; test out some of the tricks in the Investigating book there?; look up how much a spirit box costs; convince Jake to loan me some money for it if it’s expensive af; maybe convince dad to loan me part of the money for it to ‘rent something for film class’;_ and on the next page- because this person apparently separates supernatural from true crime like a good student- _revisit theories on who the Zodiac Killer could be after reading more of_ Dangerous Animal.

Shane usually thinks that people who spend time chasing after ghosts and vampires are fucking idiotic, but after reading the notes about this person planning to deceive their dad to get money for a spirit box (he already hates it just by the name), he’s almost… endeared. In some sort of twisted, appalled way, Shane is kind of really amused at the thought of some dorky college student sweet-talking their parents into giving them money for ghost hunting equipment.

He really wants to keep the notes to show Sara, since she also thinks ghosts are horseshit, but instead, he opens the _Sasquatch_ book up to where the person left off and sticks the pages in it. He takes a quick picture of the notes before putting the book back into the row, and finds himself grinning stupidly down at his phone.

After the books are put away again, Shane slinks over to the table and blessedly finds it still empty. He grabs his Julius Caesar book and folds his long limbs up into as tight of a ball as he can on the floor, so that he’s out of sight and squished comfortably between the table and the window.

He reads until his shift is nearly over, and then he resigns himself to going back to the help desk. Thankfully, Keith is helping some girl find a book on microbiology, so Sara is the only one sitting and waiting for him. She could yell at Shane for bailing and Shane would take it, but instead, she just grins and asks what he read while he was gone. Shane maybe loves her a lot.

“Some book on Julius Caesar,” he tells her. He suddenly remembers the notes. “I went to that back table, and it was _covered_ in books- all of them were about ghosts and Bigfoot and different serial killers.”

Sara laughs. “What the fuck?”

Shane laughs back. “I know right. They left some notes behind, so I’m pretty sure that they were in the middle of trying to solve the Whaley House ghoul mystery and remembered they had to be in Calculus or something by 3.”

He pulls his phone out and shows her the notes, and they spend a few minutes laughing over them and talking about the Whaleys and what they would trick their parents into buying for them.

“We should try to find out who it is and ambush them.” Sara grabs onto his hands and gives them a little shake. “It’d be like a Bigfoot sighting but crazy conspiracy theorist edition.”

“Sara, if we hit this kid with the facts, I don’t think they’re ever going to come back to the library and probably flunk out of school and we’ll both feel terrible.”

“But they believe that the Whaleys are _ghosts_ , Shane. We need to reverse-Jennifer Love Hewitt them and show them the light of science.”

Shane makes some non-committal noise, and for the moment, it’s enough to get Sara to chill out. They sit and entertain the idea of saving this poor kid until another pair of coworkers, Adam and Andrew, show up to take their spots. Once they both clock out and leave the library, their discussion moves away from ghost hunters to Keith being a nut about cats and this turns into talking about Eugene and Zach almost duking it out in a cats versus dogs debate, and the conspiracy theory kid is pushed from his mind. He pretty much forgets about them, and bets to himself that they’ll never actually find out who trashed Shane’s table with books on Sasquatch and the Zodiac Killer.

_**~.~.~** _

He’s sorely mistaken when, after no less than a week, he makes his usual rounds and finds the exact same table in the exact same state.

“Seriously?” he mutters to himself, and thinks it’s weird that he’s not more annoyed. For whatever reason, the little tendrils of affection he felt before are taking over again, instead of the irritation he knows he should be feeling.

This time, there are a few more books on Sasquatch, including the very thought-provoking _Sasquatch_ , and one that makes Shane laugh titled _Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend._ There’s also the repeat offenders of the books about investigating ghosts and the Zodiac Killer. Against his better judgement, Shane lifts up a few of the books, and is rewarded by the sight of more notes hiding underneath some book called _Ghost Hunting For Beginners_.

Shane separates the mess of books into their respective Myths & Legends and True Crime piles, and as he’s walking towards each section, he looks over the notes. They’re just as entertaining and vaguely confusing as the last set, broken up by category.

From the Myths and Legends books: _might go to Whaley House with Daysha after finals so get directions; definitely going with her to the Cecil for a night, work extra shift to get money for the room; also work an extra shift to get money for spirit box (the $70 one from ghoststop.com) and bring it to the Cecil and the Whaley House to test out; convince Steven to get me some holy water from his church; casually ask Steven about demonic possession and what holy items look like??? since my gay ass doesn’t know; watch a few more tutorials on the spirit box;_ and then there are a few random scribbles pertaining to the Whaley House that Shane can’t decipher without the writer helping him out.

And then, from the True Crime books: _convince Daysha to go to the parts of town that the Zodiac Killer did his shit in; ask Jake to teach me a few self defense moves so the ZK doesn’t stab us since Jake isn’t scared of anything;_ Dangerous Animal _has some compelling evidence for Van Best being the ZK, but Allen still seems like the most viable option; fix chart to match what I’ve read so far in_ Dangerous Animal; _start in on the Keddie Cabin murders???; might just have to tell Daysha we’re going out for sushi and trick her into coming with me to the ZK sites so she doesn’t go ape shit._

Shane is endlessly amused by these different notes. Ranging from the writer talking about buying literal ghost hunting equipment to them planning on tricking their friends into helping them out with these trips to having _charts_ for famous murder cases, he doesn’t even know what to feel other than amused. Maybe something like cringiness, or maybe something like affection. He sends a quick tip-of-the-hat out to whoever Jake and Daysha are to this person- it seems like the writer of these notes pulls shit like this all the time, or dedicates a lot of their time to the supernatural and true crime, and their friends must really love them to put up with it.

When he goes to put the Sasquatch books back, he pauses again to take a picture of the notes, and then tucks them safely into the page the person left off on. And, against his better judgement, Shane decides to grab one of the large post-it notes from the front desk (where Sara and Keith are having an animated discussion on the wonders of old episodes of _Spongebob_ ) and leaves the person a message.

**_You should probably learn to keep better track of time so you don’t leave our table looking like Bigfoot nested on it for a night. And I bet you the $70 your spirit box costs that the Whaley House isn’t haunted. Because ghosts aren’t real. ~ Library Employee #3_ **

After Shane puts the notes away and sticks his own right on top, he laughs under his breath and goes back to walking around the library and collecting random books. He spends most of his shift trying to imagine what this wannabe ghost hunter looks like and looking up how much it costs to rent a room for a night at the Cecil Hotel.

Much to his amusement? annoyance? confusion? this weird event of him doing rounds and finding the very back table trashed continues on for almost another month after his initial discovery. It usually doesn’t happen every single time he works, but usually on some odd Tuesday or Thursday, he’ll clock in at 2 and by the time he starts circling the library at 4, he’ll find the table covered in whatever books the person is skimming or reading through. He’s a little pissed that he never catches who’s doing it, but also thinks that a lot of the fun comes from privately seeing what the person is researching and what connections they’re making between different cases.

“It still baffles me that they always forget their notes,” Shane tells Sara on the obligatory once-a-month Sunday that they have to work. “You’d think after the second time they’d remember to grab them? I’d want to remember if I needed to convince Jake to come with me to the Cecil Hotel since he can apparently kick through cement walls.”

Sara leans closer and lowers her voice. “You know, I thought the same thing after you told me about that nice little note you left them the second time. But now I think they’re doing it on purpose.”

“What?”

“They obviously want you to keep responding to them. In some masochistic kind of way, I bet they like your douchebag responses to their notes.”

“I’ve only done it a few times. That’s stupid,” he says back, mostly because he really doesn’t have a good argument against it. _Was Shane flirting with a supernatural-obsessed, true crime-mini-investigating conspiracy theorist?_ After a few seconds of this echoing inside of his head, he tells her: “I think I need to go lie down.”

Sara chokes on a granola bar she’s not supposed to be eating. “Are you serious?”

“I-I can’t even begin to entertain the thought of you thinking I want to get with this person. Me? Bang someone who thinks that they’re going to get murked by the Zodiac Killer if they show up in the same spots he killed all those people? In this day and age? I’m, frankly, appalled, Sara Rubin. We’re no longer best friends.”

She gestures towards the stairs that lead to the coffee shop in the basement of the library. “I think you need to go get a big cup of black coffee and chill the fuck out, buddy.”

“No,” Shane gets up, and his big, uncontrollable limbs almost send an iMac flying. “I’m just- I’m going away for a minute. I’m sure Keith will be back after he’s done trying to sucker Becky Miller into giving him her number again.”

Before Sara can yell or chuck her half-eaten granola bar at his head, Shane takes off towards the history section. He knows that, just like all the other times he’s taken refuge in this part of the nonfiction section, it’s a terrible idea and that Sara could track him down blindfolded and with Panic! at the Disco blaring in her ears, but he feels the safest resting against the wall of presidential biographies. He thinks he must be losing his mind, entertaining the idea of ever flirting with a fucking _ghost hunter._

After he takes a few minutes to collect himself, Shane debates grabbing some random book about the Civil War to look over, but even indulging in reading history books seems a little bizarre to him in that moment. Instead, he decides to avoid Sara (and Keith) for a little while until he gets himself under control, and starts on his rounds early.

He thinks nothing of it when he heads towards the back table first, wondering if the insane (intelligent and hilarious) person has, once again, left behind all of their things. Even though they’re the source of his current existential crisis, some sick part of him thinks that seeing their usual scribbled mess of _trick Jake into going with me to the Cecil this time_ and _promise to buy Daysha the new Kat Von D palette if she goes on the Cleveland Torso Murderer tour with me during spring break_ will actually make him feel better.

When he strides out from the history shelves, he turns towards the back table and hopes to see the usual piles of books and forgotten pages-

And what he gets instead is all those books and notes and some guy picking carefully through that goddamn _Sasquatch_ book and scribbling something down on one of the sheets Shane has probably put away and-

Shane momentarily loses his mind. Instead of taking the common sense route and hauling ass back to the help desk to get Sara or to hide, his stupid, long legs walk him up to the table and his stupid, smart aleck mouth makes him blurt out into the otherwise quiet library:

“If you think that the ghost of Richard Ramirez haunts the Cecil Hotel, you’re on crack cocaine.”

The guy almost falls out of his chair when he jerks his head up to look at Shane, and Shane would laugh if he wasn’t suddenly and absolutely stunned by this stranger _._ His dark hair is a wreck from running his fingers through it, and his eyes are a deep, pretty brown and doe-like from surprise, and his arms _goddamn bulge_ out of the sleeves of his t-shirt. The worst part of him, though, is the grin he gives Shane instead of a scowl when his brain catches up to what’s going on. After a few seconds of staring, he takes in Shane’s attire and his badge and overall work-looking self and his confused pout turns into a sunny smile.

“Oh, so you’re Librarian #3? The one who’s got it out for me since I believe in ghosts and that P. Diddy had a hand in Tupac’s murder? I’m pretty sure that the anger in your notes means that you’re just as invested in this shit as I am.”

And for the first time in his entire life, Shane is speechless. He’s aware that he must be staring at this kid like a complete moron, because the other guy just smiles even more and taps his notes with his pen.

“Admit it- you saw all my brilliant theories and connections and now you’re just pissed because I’ve shattered your 2D view on the world and what happens to people when they're violently killed.”

Finally, Shane’s tongue unfreezes. “Yeah right. I mostly read your notes because they make me laugh. _A lot_. I would believe that space aliens arrived in my bedroom in the middle of the night to probe me and turn me into a human coat rack before I would believe that the fucking Whaley House is haunted.”

All he gets in return is a muffled laugh, and it’s smooth and beautiful and Shane _so_ does not need this right now.

“I also read them to make sure you’re treating your friends nicely. Whoever Jake and Daysha are probably need me to come and save them more than you’ll ever need to be saved from the Zodiac Killer.”

The guy’s small, cute laugh turns into a wheezy mess almost immediately; if Shane wasn’t the literal librarian around this section, he would be the one to come over and tell him to quiet down. Instead of doing his job, Shane stares.

“Jake is my brother, so he’s used to this. I’ve been into ghosts and cold cases since we were kids.” The guy’s smile is blinding. “And Daysha is my best friend. In return for making her go to all of these places with me, I buy her makeup and dinner. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Shane feels some of his bold flare return, and on a whim, reaches out to snatch the guy’s phone up. He inspects his student ID where it’s on display in the cardholder on the back of his case.  

“Well, Mr. Professional-Paranormal-and-Homicide-Investigator, uh,” Shane squints, and tries not to stare at the kid’s derpy ID smile. “Ryan Bergara, I really hope that you’re telling me the truth or I might feel obligated to track your brother and best friend down and really show them the extent you’re taking this Zodiac Killer shit to, and recommend they get you some psychiatric help.”

This guy isn’t going to back down easily, which Shane should already know, but he’s still caught off guard when Ryan suddenly lunges forward to grab the ID hanging off of his neck. He finds himself hunched over the table, Ryan’s hand closed around his work lanyard and their faces exponentially closer than they were before. Ryan is almost sickeningly beautiful this close up.

“Well, I’ll have you know-” Ryan stops to read his nametag. “Shane- Mehdege? Maydayge? How the fuck do you pronounce that?”

“Muh-day,” Shane sounds it out for him, dazzled. “Silent J. It’s Polish.”

Ryan giggles. “I’ll have you know, Shane Muh-day, that nothing will scare my brother and best friend away. Jake was there for JonBenét Ramsey and Daysha was there for Bloody Mary when it circled around our 3rd grade class. You’re going to have to get a little craftier than being an asshole to win them over.”

There are a lot of things Shane could say. He could just laugh and walk away and tell Ryan to put his stuff away from now on. He could tell Ryan that the sky would fall before the Zodiac Killer ever attempted to kill him or the Whaley House would be proven to have ghosts in it. He could even just tell Ryan he’s a crazy son of a bitch and walk away and leave it at that forever. But instead of doing anything rational or something to give them some space, Shane hears himself nailing the lid on his own goddamn coffin.

“So- how many charts do you have? I bet your murder board for the Zodiac Killer would cover the floor of this entire library.”

Ryan’s answering grin is razor-sharp. “You should see my board for Jack the Ripper.”

Somehow, after Shane laughs at Ryan, he ends up taking a seat across from him and gets sucked up into a huge conversation about all of the things he’s researching. Shane interrogates him about everything from the Whaley House and whatever the fuck a spirit box is (“It basically lets spirits communicate with you through rapidly changing radio channels.” “I’d rather call my 105 year old great-grandmother on the phone than try to talk to ghosts through that thing.”) to Sasquatch to the Zodiac Killer to Tupac and Biggie Smalls. Ryan explains a lot of his thoughts on all of these topics in a much clearer way than his notes present.

“Your note taking skills are abysmal. How was I supposed to get that you think Earl Van Best Jr. is a good candidate for the Zodiac Killer because of his appearance but believe that Arthur Leigh Allen is the actual killer because of his behavior from that witless chicken scratch?”

“I actually believe that the Zodiac Killer is two people- the original guy and then a copycat.”

“You- _your notes are awful, Ryan._ ”

“Fuck you. Apparently they’re not awful enough to stop you from replying to them.”

The entire encounter follows these lines: Ryan trying to explain himself and Shane mercilessly teasing him for his scattered thoughts and notes. One thing that he can’t get over is the fact that Ryan seems to enjoy their banter, and instead of getting pissed at Shane, pushes back and rises to the challenge with his own set of witty insults. The only other person who’s ever let him get away with it before was Sara, but mostly because Sara’s a badass and he’s also softer with her than anyone else in his life.

They talk about Ryan’s notes for a few minutes before Shane works up the courage to ask him: “So why do you keep leaving them? I get the first time or two, since you seem like you’re always going at about the speed of light miles per hour, but after the third time? C’mon.”

His heart almost stops when Ryan tells him honestly: “I love seeing how worked up you get over my ideas and connections. Your asshole comments on them are really fucking funny, dude.”

_How the fuck did Sara know that?_

Once again, he finds himself wonderstruck by the enigma that is Ryan Bergara, with his grapefruit muscles and genuine grin and stupid, pretty eyes, and his ability to call Shane out on his shit without even trying. They haven’t even formally known each other for 24 hours.

Shane stares for too long, probably, because Ryan suddenly ducks his head and apologizes; the tips of his ears are turning pink. “Sorry. I don’t usually get to have conversations about this stuff with people who seem semi-interested in it, even if it’s them arguing against or trying to disprove my theories. Jake and Daysha mostly go on trips with me to hold my hand, but don’t really care about this stuff like I do. I got a little carried away, huh?”

He doesn’t know how to tell Ryan that he’d gladly sit and listen to him yell about JonBenét Ramsey’s unsolved murder for days and days without sounding like a creeper. Instead, he just smiles through all of the alarm bells going off inside of his head. “Nah, I get it- I’m a really big history buff and the only other person who I can talk about it with is my dad, so the conversations are really sparse and kinda lame? Since he’s never even thought about Benjamin Franklin being a sexual deviant? So don’t feel embarrassed.”

“A what?” Ryan cackles, and Shane can feel the heat of some people’s glares even without turning around. He should really be doing his job.

_His job._

“Oh shit,” Shane says, completely disregarding Ryan’s question. He looks at the watch on his wrist, and then starts to stand up without meaning to. “I totally forgot I was working, what the hell- I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Ryan flushes again. “I’m so sorry- I didn’t mean to drag you into that giant mess of a conversation. Not that I’m surprised I did it, but! Sorry again.”

Shane pauses to smile at him. “Don’t apologize. I really enjoyed talking to you about that stuff, even if most of it is complete and total hogwash.”

Ryan snorts, and avoids conceding by looking down at his phone. His lock screen also alerts him that it’s about 5:40, and he chokes a little. “Well, I’m glad you said something- I’m supposed to be meeting Daysha for dinner in, uh, five minutes.”

“You better get running, Bergara- I bet your short little legs can’t get you anywhere in five minutes.”

“Shut up, Madej.” Ryan gets up and shoves some things into his backpack, and then gathers up all of the books and his notes. “I guess I’ll put these all back tonight.”

Shane wordlessly holds his hands out, and Ryan ends up giving him all of the True Crime books. They stop by the Myths and Legends section first, and then walk together to the True Crime section, mindlessly chatting about Ryan always being late for things and Shane having a phobia and reoccuring nightmares of not being on time.

When they reach the end of the shelves and stop next to the exit staircase, Ryan turns to Shane and gives him another brilliant smile. Shane pretends that he can’t see Sara looking over at them from the help desk.

“You know, I’d apologize for leaving the table a disaster so many times, but I’m kinda glad I made your life harder because it got you to admit that the Cecil Hotel is not a great place.”

“I still don’t think it’s haunted,” is all he can say back, because Ryan Bergara is something fucking else.

Ryan scoffs and starts down the stairs. “I’ll see you around?”

“I do actually work here, so probably.”

He laughs and flips Shane off before racing down the stairs as fast as his (averagely sized) legs will let him. Shane watches him leave, and continues to watch him through the glass walls of the library as Ryan takes off in a sprint towards whichever dining hall he’s supposed to be meeting Daysha at.

When he drags himself over to the desk, after nearly an hour of being AWOL, all Sara does is grin stupidly up at him.

“I take it that that’s your conspiracy theorist?”

Shane drops down onto his chair and, with a loud groan, smashes his face into the small pile of returns he needs to log into the system.

“He’s cute,” she continues, scooting closer. “I don’t know how you of all people did it, but he looks like the sun shines out his ass and it, like, quadrupled while you were talking to him. How did you get someone to laugh at you while talking about ghosts?”

He replies: “I don’t know, Sara, I’m still in shock,” but it sounds more like “Belgejfif wfjkew hsijaskfaf hfdsa fa,” and Sara just laughs and pets his hair a little.

“You’ll be better prepared next time.”


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> essentially, Shane grows a pair™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!!! I'm back for chapter two!!! I'm so proud that I'm pushing myself to write and keep going tbh bc I've never maintained a chaptered fic before and I'm hoping that I'm able to push myself to finish this one!! Thank you so much for reading chapter one and continuing on to chapter two!! I hope that you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! :-) 
> 
> A little fun fact before we start: all of the book titles that I've been mentioning in the previous chapter and also this one are all real books. So, technically, you could purchase/borrow the same books that Ryan is reading and buddy read with him lmao. I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a copy of 'The Most Dangerous Animal of All' and I'm so fucking excited to start it soon. 
> 
> Anyways, off we go! Please enjoy!!

Shane is not, in fact, any better prepared the next time he runs into Ryan Bergara, or any time after that. Now that they’ve gotten past the kind-of-weird, kind-of-fun part of the situation where Ryan would leave all of his shit on the table and run to class, Shane sees him all the time. Either he finds more time to come to the library or stops trying to evade Shane, because Ryan is at his table almost every single time that Shane works.

Sometimes Shane just hangs back and watches him. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone, but on more than one occasion, he’s pulled a bunch of random books off of shelves and acted like he needed to put them away just to watch Ryan read. Ryan gets sucked into his research the way Shane gets sucked into reading history books, and the only thing that ever shakes him from it is a text. So Shane takes advantage of Ryan’s immersion in his work and ‘puts books away’ while blatantly staring at him.

He feels like he’s being smooth, but everyone else minus Ryan is quick to assure him that he’s being the exact opposite. One stand-out shift goes a little something like this:

“You’ve already talked to him before, Shane. I don’t understand why you feel the need to stalk him and watch while he reads like a weirdo. Just ask him what he’s up to.”

“He probably doesn’t want me to interrupt him while he’s reading about the best way to ask the Whaley family if they can still remember what their dog’s name was.”

Sara rolls her eyes and goes back to saving recipes for fun mixed drinks on Pinterest instead of logging in returns. “I bet if you went up to him and asked him about it, he’d marry you on the spot.”

“I- what the fuck are you talking about?”

“He literally glows when you talk to him,” Sara sends him a _look_ over the top of her glasses. “Which still boggles my mind, since you think ghosts are about as real as the existence of the Bermuda Triangle, but. We’ve all got our types.”

“And apparently yours is a crazy conspiracy theorist who honest-to-God believes that the Jewish Defense League might have had a hand in Tupac’s murder.”

Shane feels a surprisingly hot flash of annoyance when Keith says this, and before he can stop himself, he’s saying: “At least I don’t harass Becky Miller as soon as she steps foot into the library to talk about rescuing dogs even though you’re a fucking cat person.”

“At least my boyfriend isn’t a foot shorter than I am.”

“He’s average height.” Shane snaps, even though he constantly teases Ryan about his shortness. “And he’s not my boyfriend.”

Sara shoves away from her computer, and after clicking out of Pinterest, grabs her wallet. “I’m going downstairs to get a coffee and something to eat. If you’re still fighting by the time I come back up, I’m going to shove a panini up both of your asses. Do either of you want anything?”

Their immediate reaction is to mimic each other, and Shane ends up hardening his voice and saying: “A date with Becky Miller,” in an impression of Keith, and Keith lowers his voice and says: “Sex in a haunted house with Ryan Bergara,” in an impression of Shane. Sara gives them both an icy glare and wordlessly turns to go to the basement.

Shane and Keith don’t voluntarily speak to each other for the rest of their shift, even when Sara brings them both small coffees and makes them say three nice things about the other person while holding eye contact.

His boss has also noticed his sudden interest in spending time down at the other end of the library- specifically the Language and the Literary Analysis sections, both of which have the clearest and least conspicuous views of Ryan’s table.

During one shift, Shane holds onto a copy of _The Hunger Games_ that’s been translated into German for nearly ten minutes because he’s too busy staring at Ryan to put it on the shelf.

“I thought you were taking Spanish,” someone says, flatly, and Shane jumps half a foot off of the ground.

He turns around and sees it’s Quinta, looking expectantly up at him with her sassy eyes and sassy mouth and sassy arms crossed over her sassy chest.

“I am,” he replies, and feels a cold bead of sweat slide down his back.

Quinta wordlessly looks down at the book in his hands, looks behind him to where Ryan is devouring a book, and then looks back up at Shane. Her expression never changes, but Shane can basically see her thoughts as they flit through her head.

In the end, she only gives him the look for a few moments and then continues on her way to the back room, sending Shane one last glance of disappointment over her shoulder. He thinks he’s in the clear, but when he goes to grab his jacket after punching out, he finds a note from Quinta that says **_Ask him out or I’ll call the police_ ** and considers formally resigning.

Shane even gets some commentary from people he doesn’t work with as he’s pretending to put books away and gawking at Ryan.

Jen, a girl from his ‘The Making of the Caribbean’ class, comes into the World History section while he’s putting away a fuckload of books on Medieval Europe and trying to look over at Ryan through the gaps in between shelves.

“Hey, I forgot you worked here! I feel like I never see you.”

Shane doesn’t want to say that it’s because Jen likes to sit by the glass walls and study in the sun, and Ryan likes to sit in the section of the library that gets the least amount of sunlight and research in the shadows like a fucking cryptid. And where Ryan is- well. They start chatting about random things while Jen looks through Central America history books, and Shane tries to stop his heart from kicking every time Ryan reads something and nods seriously to himself, or reads a text and smiles.

Jen notices his less than enthusiastic responses, and says he should sneak away from his job to grab a coffee with her and Maycie, who is still studying back at Jen’s table. He laughs unsteadily, but Jen seems not to notice, or hides it well, and she looks down at the books he’s putting away.

“Ugh, I’m so glad that I’m going into LGBTQ+ and cultural history instead of that shit,” she says, grimacing down at a book titled _In the Wake of the Plague_. “By the way, have you started the paper yet?”

Shane tries to get himself in the conversation instead of screaming over the way Ryan bites on the end of his pen when he reads. “Nah- I don’t really know what to write about yet.”

“I think I might write about Caribbean food and how it’s tied into Caribbean culture since eating is pretty much my favorite thing.” Jen laughs quietly. “I might recruit Steven to help me with it and go to some restaurants that serve Caribbean food to add some more life into my paper.”

Shane is suddenly struck by a memory- one of him reading some of Ryan’s notes, and one of them saying _ask Steven what holy items look like because my gay ass doesn’t know_ and he wonders-

“Does Steven know anyone named Ryan?”

He immediately regrets asking this out loud, because Jen will probably want to know what the fuck he’s talking about, but Shane is almost desperate to know if Ryan’s Steven and Jen’s Steven both add up to the same Steven Lim. It makes sense, because both Stevens in question are religious and both Stevens are gayer than all hell, and this means that Ryan is a confirmed gay kid, _holy_ _shit-_

Instead of giving him a lot of looks that could range between confusion and curiosity, Jen beams at him. “Yeah! Ryan Bergara? That kid you’ve been staring at the entire time we’ve been talking? He’s in our Geology class. Steven and I see him at Chipotle sometimes and all end up sitting together and talking about gay shit and sports.”

Shane can feel a blush rocketing up his neck, and he pulls his jacket closer to himself in an attempt to hide it. “I don’t know what you mean-”

“Shane, you have not looked me in my eyes since we started chatting about the Black Plague and our paper for Caribbean history. I can still see your face from all the way down here.”

Feeling rightly chastised, Shane finally looks at her fully. “Sorry. I started finding his supernatural and serial killer hunting notes a few weeks ago and got sucked into this huge conversation with him about it. I just want to know what his deal is.”

“He’s single and very gay.”

Shane splutters. “That’s not the kind of deal I meant.”

Jen just smiles and picks a few books to take back to her table. “Sure. Ryan’s a very straight forward person- sweet, but kind of oblivious- so your best tactic is just to tell him you like him and get it over with. His favorite foods are burgers and quality sushi and he’s free most Saturday nights. See you in class tomorrow.”

While all of this information starts to process in Shane’s head, he tries to form a coherent thought to whisper-shout back at Jen. All he can really settle on is: “I just want to know why he believes in ghosts!”

Jen just nods and gives him a look that is eerily similar to all of Sara’s. She disappears around the corner while Shane is praying for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

After Jen’s comments sit in his head for a few days, and Sara’s looks get worse, and Keith and Quinta shortly tell him he’s being a weirdo, Shane decides that he just needs to get over it. He’s talked to Ryan a few times since the first time, but never for almost an hour; usually whenever he gets up enough courage to say something to Ryan, it’s just a passing comment here and there when he’s shelving books or picking them up from tables. Ryan will be reading a book about ghost hunting or forensic science and Shane will throw him a: “Maybe Santa Claus is the one who killed everyone in Cleveland,” and Ryan will throw back: “That’s Krampus, you idiot,” and that’s about it. Shane decides that if he’s going to spend so much time lurking around the library and staring at Ryan, he might as well use the same amount of time to talk to him and get to know him more.

So, after some mild panicking and Sara coaching him on good, reasonable conversation starters that aren’t: “I really hope that you don’t believe Underwater Area 51 actually exists or I’ll get you expelled from this university,” Shane goes up to Ryan’s table again. He does some breathing exercises, holds onto an old _Batman_ comic for strength, and then forces his stupidly long legs to walk up where Ryan is reading and writing, just like every other Thursday night.

When he gets close enough, he can see that Ryan’s reading a book about boats and has his laptop open to the homepage of some website talking about the RMS _Queen Mary_.

“Is there, like, a haunted version of the _Titanic_?”

Again, not his smoothest intro into a conversation, but much better than some of his other ones. Ryan still turns to look up at him, and still smiles beautifully, so Shane counts it as a win on some account.

“Yeah, a little bit.”

Shane laughs, even though it’s mostly him trying not to stare even harder now that he’s looking at him up close, and flings a hand towards the chair opposite of Ryan’s. “Is it okay if I sit here? My boss said I could have a fifteen minute break.”

When Ryan calls him out: “No she didn’t.” and Shane readily agrees: “No, she didn’t.” and it makes Ryan laugh, he kicks himself for not doing this sooner.

“Are you going to get in trouble?” Ryan asks him, even as he’s pulling books away from that side of the table so Shane can have some space.

“Eh,” Shane sits down. “I’ve done worse and Quinta still hasn’t fired me, so I think I’m safe.”

Ryan just shakes his head, and to Shane’s surprise, turns his laptop around so that they can both see what he’s looking at.  

“The _Queen Mary_ is this ship that was used during World War II, and after the war, they used it for general voyages across the sea. Eventually, they decided to dock it in Long Beach forever after ticket sales declined and it became too expensive to operate, but it’s become a historical sight for people to visit- and also a haunted attraction.”

Shane gives Ryan his best expression of false belief. “Oh, really! That’s exciting! Tell me all about the ghosties on board.”

He’s still amazed when, instead of telling him to fuck off, Ryan just shakes his head and grins at Shane’s skepticism. It makes something warm and comforting settle low in his stomach.

“There’s tons of places on board that have been reported to have high paranormal activity, like some of the cabins and the medical ward in the bottom of the ship and the boiler room. The bow is also really active since it’s where the _Queen Mary_ hit the HMS _Curacoa_ and killed 239 people aboard it.”

Shane lets out a low whistle, loud enough to get his point across but not loud enough to send Keith running to come and kick his ass.

“That’s a lot of people.”

“Exactly, and they all died in a not nice way, so their souls would obviously be tethered to the ship since ghosts haunt the places where they experienced the most suffering.”

“Yeah, I can see how your ship being destroyed and drowning or getting chopped up by the propellers of the ship that hit yours would make a few people feel like they suffered.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ryan laughs as quietly as he can, burying a smile into the palm of his hand.

Shane kind of wants to see how far he can push Ryan; he leans in closer, and drops his voice down to a quiet lull. “Have you seen any evidence of the ghosts?”

Ryan nods, staring right back into Shane’s eyes. “I’ve been reading a bunch of eyewitness reports online, and watching some videos people have taken on board. There are even some thermal camera images and one video where someone used a spirit box.”

“Ew- _the spirit box_. I still think that thing is just a shittier walkie talkie.” Shane points at Ryan’s laptop. “Can I see some of the evidence?”

Somehow, Ryan lights up even more, and he eagerly starts to pull up pictures taken onboard the _Queen Mary_ and videos people have taken exploring the ship and trying to communicate with spirits. Shane easily dismisses the pictures as being photoshopped or manipulated to make it look as though there are ghosts in them, and instead of getting mad, Ryan just makes disbelieving noises and pulls up more and more evidence. The videos are a little better, and they end up sharing Ryan’s earbuds to watch them, but Shane is still wholly unconvinced by what he’s shown.

“What makes _you_ believe in the evidence?” he asks Ryan. “I know you’re trying to get me to believe you and all these people, but what convinced you that the ghosts are real here?”

Ryan blinks at him, and then turns to look around the library; Shane feels like he’s about to admit something wild, like he’s psychic or has some sort of ability to communicate with the dead and spends his free time trying to cross them over into the afterlife.

But then Ryan leans even closer than they were before and whispers: “I stayed there for a night, once.”

“The _Queen Mary_?”

Ryan nods. “A few of my friends and I went during our senior year of high school and stayed in one of the cabins overnight and got to explore the ship and everything.”

“Did you see anything?”

Again, he nods, and Shane vaguely realizes that they’re practically touching glasses because of how close together their heads are. He feels completely entranced by Ryan’s warm, glittering eyes.

“When we were exploring the ship, we heard some noises in the boiler room and around the bow of the ship where some dude named John got crushed by an automatic door, but didn’t really get anything good. But that night when we were sleeping, I felt someone poking my face and thought that it was my friend poking me from the other side of the bed, but when I finally opened my eyes to say something, he was fast asleep and _snoring_. And then in the morning, I was brushing my teeth and-”

Ryan stops, and Shane, idiotically, inches forwards. “And?”

There’s a moment of tense silence that follows the encouragement, and Shane watches as Ryan studies his face and then studies his laptop. The way he’s moving his lips around in thought is incredibly distracting, and Shane has to stop himself from physically reaching up and pulling Ryan’s bottom lip out from under his teeth.

Shane’s about to ask if he’s okay when Ryan finally turns back to him. “I have footage from that morning. One of my friends filmed us getting ready to head out and caught my toothpaste being pulled off of the counter. I’ll show you it, but only if you promise not to laugh at me.”

“Why would I laugh at you? I would just be laughing at whatever evidence you think supports the fact that ghosts are real- there’s a difference.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I know ghosts are real, asshole- I’m talking about my seventeen year old self. I look like a furby in the video.”

Even though Shane highly doubts that any version of Ryan is gross or weird-looking, he laughs and tells him: “Just play the video, man.”

He tries his hardest to see it, but even after Ryan points out the toothpaste and they watch it fall onto the floor over and over again, Shane can’t find any part of himself that believes a ghost pulled the toothpaste off of the counter.

“How do you think that’s not someone pulling on it?” Ryan demands, trying and mostly failing to keep his voice down. “Shit doesn’t just fall like that.”

“It actually does, especially when you just throw your other toothpaste onto the counter like you did in the video. There’s this really super cool thing called gravity that might have had a hand in it.”

Ryan looks like he doesn’t know whether to punch Shane in the face or just sigh and give up. He ends up doing a little bit of both, and makes a small, frustrated noise while hitting Shane on the shoulder.

“I don’t get you, dude. That was hard fucking evidence and you just brushed it off like it was nothing! Fucking unbelievable.”

“I just don’t find it compelling.”

“What would a ghost have to do to make you believe in it?”

“A whole lot, Ryan.” Shane wiggles his fingers in the air. “Throw the toothpaste at me. Rip my skull out of my head. I don’t really know, it would just have to result in no room for questioning.”

“Oh my God, you’re psychotic. You wouldn’t actually tell a ghost to rip your skull out of your head, would you?”

“I mean-” Shane shrugs, and delights in Ryan’s horrified expression. “It wouldn’t matter if I did. Since ghosts aren’t real and can’t actually rip my skull out of my head.”

“But they can knock toothpaste off of a counter.”

Without meaning to, Shane starts cracking up when Ryan says this, and then Ryan’s cracking up, too, and they’re both trying to get it out of their systems without making the entire library demand that they leave. They probably look like a mess with their heads bent close together and hands pressed ineffectively against their mouths.

Apparently, they don’t hide it well enough, because after they laugh for a solid two minutes Shane feels a hand slap down onto his shoulder. It leaves little to the imagination about the person’s anger towards the two of them, and ends up belonging to an extremely irritated Quinta Brunson.

“Shane Madej, I _really_ feel like I should fire you or something. Why are you never at the damn help desk?”

Despite being more than a foot taller than Quinta, Shane feels his spine freeze up and has a hard time looking up to meet her eyes. When he does, she looks like the same old no-bullshit Quinta with a little extra fire, and he winces.

“Sorry, boss. I got tricked into watching ghost videos.”

“You’re about to get tricked into leaving and never coming back if you don’t go log in some of the returns piling up on your desk.”

Quinta makes a go-on-get motion, and Shane flashes an apologetic smile at Ryan. “I’ll have to come back and explain why ghosts are baloney some other time.”

Ryan subtly flips him off by using his middle finger to push his glasses up. “Yeah, yeah. Go before you actually get fired, you idiot.”

Before Shane can escape and kiss up to avoid Quinta’s actual wrath, the shorter woman looks Ryan up and down from his relaxed seat at the table, and nods in understanding.

“Oh, so _you’re_ the kid Shane’s got the hots for.”

Shane trips at the same time that Ryan chokes.

“What?” they say in unison, and even when Shane feels like his world is suddenly burning down, his eyes are helplessly drawn to Ryan. Ryan is already looking back at him, confused.

“He lives for coming back here and picking up your books and reading your notes. You know he hates anything to do with the supernatural, right? But he willingly subjects himself to hearing about it just for you. That’s some amazing shit.”

Now that Quinta’s successfully ruined Shane’s chances of ever looking in Ryan’s general vicinity ever again, she seems satisfied, and gives them both a cheesy smile. As she’s walking away to go back up front, Shane wonders if the school would be mad if he flung himself out of the nearest window.

They sit in a semi-awkward silence for a few heartbeats, until Ryan clears his throat and Shane forces himself to look over at him.

“Is that true?” he asks, and Shane braces himself for Ryan telling him that he’s not interested and that he wants to be left the fuck alone. “You don’t like talking about supernatural stuff?”

_That’s what he’s concerned about?_

“I just- I don’t believe in most of it, so I don’t really waste my time reading or talking about it. That’s all.”

Shane expects a wounded or turned-off look, but instead, he gets something that looks roughly like a puzzled smirk.

“So, you hate ghosts, but you want to spend time talking about them with me? Is that right?”

“Yes,” Shane says, helpless, and Ryan laughs his sweet, beautiful laugh.

“I think this might be the greatest unsolved mystery that I’ve ever encountered.”

 _Not really,_ Shane feels like yelling, library rules be damned. _It’s because you’re beautiful and witty and so fucking amazing that I could scream._

“Maybe it’s just because you believe in it so much that I think you need someone like me to balance you out.”

Ryan’s grin turns into more of a total smirk, and Shane is once again struck by his razor-sharp mind and how easy it is for him to read Shane, even if Jen tries to tell him otherwise.

“If you say so. But I think you should go back to work before your boss kills you and then kills me. I don’t want to be stuck in this library for the rest of time.”

Shane rolls his eyes, but can’t quell the affectionate smile that forms on his face. “See you later, Ryan.”

When Shane gets back up to the help desk (after ducking into the Language section to watch Ryan smile to himself and get back to his notes), Sara and Keith are shaking their heads and looking at him knowingly.

“What?” he hisses, slinking over to his chair.

Keith just continues to shake his head. “You’ve got it _bad_ , dude.”

And Sara just laughs. “Quinta filled us in, and apparently if Ryan regular-glows when you’re talking to him, then you fucking glow in the dark when he’s talking to you.”

Shane doesn’t know if he should just take Quinta’s threat into his own hands and storm out of the library and never come back or storm over to Ryan’s table to kiss the fuck out of him.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” is what he settles on, and tries to ignore Keith’s rude snort.

**_~.~.~_ **

After he has the second longer conversation with Ryan, Shane starts to do it almost every single time he works. Even if it’s just a quick ten minutes where he can park it and listen to Ryan spout random facts about the _Queen Mary_ or what progress he’s made in the Zodiac Killer case, Shane makes sure to find time to talk to Ryan for more than a quick: “Your toothpaste footage is extremely useless, Bergara, try again.”

More often than not, he gets teased mercilessly by Sara and Keith when he manages to pry himself away from the conversation, or if Quinta comes over and forcefully pulls him away from Ryan. Luckily, she hasn’t told Ryan that Shane has a crush on him again, and Ryan hasn’t brought it up, so he feels okay with sweeping that excruciatingly awkward moment under the proverbial rug and never thinking about it again. Quinta does, however, give Ryan knowing smiles and Shane very pointed looks, and he thinks it’s just a matter of time before his boss tells everyone in the entire goddamn library that he wants to make out with Ryan.

“It’s not like we all don’t already know.” Sara unhelpfully points out one day; they’re splitting a bag of pretzels under the desk where Quinta can’t see, and sometimes Sara tickles his hand just for fun. “I’ve had several students come up here to check something out and comment on you two having a grand ol’ time in the back. It’s very clear that you’re into each other.”

“Yeah, but Ryan doesn’t know that I like him, and I’d actually like to keep it that way, believe it or not.”

“Did you not hear what I just-” She sighs, and instead of tickling the back of his hand, lightly pinches it. “Why are you such a hardhead? Sometimes I just want to pick you up and shake you, but then I remember I’m an entire foot shorter than you so I can’t. Which is stupid. Stop being stupid.”

“I’ll try my best,” Shane deadpans. When Sara goes to tickle his hand again, he holds onto hers and she lets him. “Why is liking boys so difficult?”

“I don’t know, and also can’t relate, as you’ve known since the 6th grade.” Sara squeezes his hand, and Shane flashes back to a twelve year old Sara curled up next to him in their blanket fort and whispering _Shane? Can I tell you a secret? I think I’m gay._ “But trust me when I say that Ryan is the gayest man I’ve ever met, next to you and Curly.”

Shane tries not to laugh, but Sara is his favorite person in the entire world, so he can’t help it. He giggles while attempting to type in some book information using only his right hand. “I’ll bet.”

The more time he spends shooting the shit with Ryan in the back of the library, the harder it is for him to make himself go back to work. He used to be able to wait an entire hour before going over to Ryan’s table and striking up a conversation, but now it’s a marathon trying to wait for thirty minutes to pass. Quinta is getting equally more amused and more annoyed by this, but Shane can’t make himself stop. He’s drawn towards Ryan and his blinding smile like a Dementor is to human souls.

And Shane is already convinced that talking to Ryan is the best thing he’s ever done, even though all they do it argue. So when they finally agree on something during a conversation, he truly begins to understand how completely and totally fucked he is.

He sees Ryan one afternoon with a new, blank ‘board’ in front of him, and Shane can’t help but start their almost-daily conversation with: “Are you really starting another case? You’ve got at least ten going already.”

Ryan doesn’t even look up from his laptop, but Shane still sees it when he recognizes his voice and smiles cutely. It makes his stomach flip hard enough that he has to cough down a noise.

“I’ve only got six going, actually, but thanks for your input. The Whaley House is kind of on hold until I actually get to go and see it with Daysha after finals are done. The Cecil Hotel is kind of done, but still kind of open? I was investigating the death of Elisa Lam in relation to the possible ghost of Richard Ramirez, but that’s kind of hit a wall. I might have to retire it soon since the night I spent there with Daysha didn’t really turn up anything, but I’m going there with Jake during his spring break for a night to test some more stuff out. I’m only kind of doing the Cleveland Torso Murderer case right now, but I’m gonna save most of that for summer when I head over to Ohio with Daysha to check it out. Bigfoot is just a here and there project that I add to sometimes. I just started the _Queen Mary_ and don’t want to get stuck in a rut with it. And the Zodiac Killer case is so big and twisted that it takes a lot out of me to focus solely on it.”

Shane blinks at the word vomit, but doesn’t say anything, just takes his seat and waits for Ryan to look at him. He does, after typing something out on his laptop, and the excitement on his face is so fucking adorable that it makes Shane’s stomach lurch again.

“So I’m a starting a new case to make up for the ones I can’t finish right now or the ones that are really complicated or I don’t feel rushed to complete.”

“Is it the Keddie Cabin murders?” Shane asks, thinking back to some of Ryan’s notes.

“Nah, that one’s really heavy, too, so I’m doing one from a long time ago that’s more ‘Well played, ma’am, well played,’ than anything.”

Shane makes a sweeping motion with his hands, and Ryan grins, flicking his pen at Shane’s knuckles.

“My next case is going to be on Lizzie Borden.”

Shane has never heard of this woman in his entire life, and he tells Ryan as much. “I’ve literally never heard of her. Was she kidnapped or abducted by aliens or something?”

“Nah, much cooler, dude- she’s the main suspect in a murder that happened in 1892.”

“Ooooh, that sounds way better than a fake abduction story.” Shane leans closer to Ryan without even meaning to. “Spin me a yarn, Mr. Bergara.”

“You’re so fucking weird,” Ryan laughs, and coming from anyone else, the comment might have stung, but Ryan says it like it’s his favorite thing about Shane.

Ryan begins to tell Shane about Lizzie Borden and her father and stepmother’s axe murders back in 1892, and how Lizzie was the primary suspect but eventually was acquitted because there was no hard evidence against her. He tells Shane about the clean axehead police found in the basement, and the maid, Maggie, reporting that Lizzie’s dress was clean after she discovered the body of her father and alerted Maggie. He also talks about Lizzie’s suspicious remembrance of her stepmother being home and not hearing the murder take place, and her and Maggie finding Abby Borden also dead up in the guest bedroom, and the father’s wealth possibly being the cause of the murders.

“I think that she did it to get her dad’s money,” Ryan tells him. “After he spent so much money buying homes for Abby’s extended family and her sister, I think Lizzie snapped and felt like she needed to do whatever it took to get the money that she knew would be in her father’s will.”

“That makes sense. Since he was always so frugal with their immediate family, but was suddenly ready to spend his money on Abby’s family? I’d be kind of mad too. I don’t know if I would bash my dad’s head in with an axe, but I’d be a little upset.”

Ryan leans closer to him this time, and Shane knows that Ryan’s about to lay down his _real_ theory.

“A lot of people think that Lizzie acted alone for her own personal gain, but I don’t think that she did.”

“I’m shocked.”

“Some people believe that Lizzie’s maid, Maggie, was also involved in the killings. There’s a debate on whether or not they were also romantically involved, but when it comes down to it, the father was probably frugal with Maggie just like he was with his family, and she might have been underpaid for the work she did in the house. So she helped Lizzie get away with killing her parents in order to get part of the will money to make up for the money Andrew Borden shorted her.”

Shane nods. “I like that theory better. I think it’s real obvious that Lizzie is the one who killed her parents, but it makes more sense that her maid would help her so that she would get money out of it, too. That would give Lizzie time to kill her parents and change into a clean dress before sending Maggie out to ‘alert the neighbors’.”

Ryan looks pleased that Shane agrees with his theory, and the new expression makes him feel a little lightheaded. But he can also tell that Ryan has more to say, and he tilts his head.

“You don’t think that’s the end of the story.”

Ryan preens even more. “Well, see, those are the two main theories: Lizzie Borden acted alone, or Lizzie Borden conspired with her maid-slash-lover so that they could both get what they wanted. But a detail that a lot of people overlook is the uncle.”

Shane feels a small spark of _something_ when Ryan says this, remembering that Lizzie’s uncle had been staying with the Borden family at the time of murders. “Oh my God.”

Ryan pushes forwards, encouraged by Shane’s small revelation. “Her uncle John V. Morse was staying there too, right, and they gave some bullshit excuse to explain why he wasn’t present for the murders. But he was there to discuss his business troubles with Andrew Borden, right? So my theory is that Lizzie, Maggie, and John all worked together to kill Andrew and Abby Borden so that Lizzie and her sister would inherit the fortune and Lizzie could split a cut of her share with them.”

“That’s fucking brilliant.” Shane tells Ryan quietly, trying not to let his excitement carry throughout the entire library. “All three of them needed money, so all three of them worked together to have Lizzie kill her parents and receive the will money without any of them going to jail. And without her sister finding out. That’s fucking _brilliant_. You’re fucking brilliant.”

He doesn’t really mean to let the last part leave his mouth, but whatever embarrassment he feels upon saying it out loud is immediately squashed by Ryan’s reaction. He sees what Sara means when she says that Ryan glows, because after he blurts this out, Ryan’s entire face lights up like the goddamn sun, and his smile is so wide that it crinkles his eyes, and Shane has to fight the urge to look away.

“Are you agreeing with me for once?” Ryan asks him, voice all soft and breathless.

Shane focuses on replying with something semi-understandable instead of leaning forwards to kiss Ryan stupid. “Yeah, man. When you’re not trying to convince me that Amelia Earhart was abducted by aliens over the Bermuda Triangle and now lives in Atlantis, you make a lot of sense.”

“Fuck you, I never said I think that Amelia Earhart lives in Atlantis.”

“...But the aliens?”

Ryan’s laugh makes his gut curl for the hundredth time. “I stand by that just as strongly as I stand by this three-way murder of Andrew and Abby Borden.”

Shane sighs dramatically. “You were doing so well. I guess we’ll just have to stick to true crime stuff if you ever want me to take you seriously again. Props for the Lizzie Borden case, though- you don’t even need to make a chart to look further into it. You’ve done it, Holmes.” He picks up one of Ryan’s hands and slaps their hands together in a one-sided high five. “Hustle never sleeps.”

After a split second of silence, Ryan loses it, and while he pushes Shane away with the hand he high fived, he uses the other one to muffle his cackling. He knows that there are people looking over at their table right now, most of them annoyed, but he physically can’t find it within himself to do anything but watch as Ryan chokes back his laughter. By the time he’s calmed down enough to speak, there are tears in his eyes and his cheeks are flushed.

“You’re the fucking worst,” Ryan gasps, and uses the back of his hands to brush away the tears. “Jesus Christ, it feels like someone lit my heart on fire. How do you come up with the shit you say sometimes?”

Again, coming from someone else, the words might have been malicious, but the way Ryan says them makes Shane feel incredibly warm. This new combination of comfort and excited energy makes him say more things he probably should not. “Years of practice, baby. My brand of brilliance wasn’t just born overnight.”

“You’ve got a brand of something,” Ryan tells him, teasing, but Shane can see the blush on his cheeks deepening. “And don’t call me baby.”

“You love it.” Shane teases right back, and Ryan looks like he’s about to gear up for a typical-style argument between them, but then glances over Shane’s shoulder and stops.

“Hey, I think your boss is looking for you. She just walked up to that other dude you work with and said something to him and he pointed back here.”

Shane could actually kiss him. Quinta is honestly out for his blood at this point.

“God bless you,” Shane says, and scrambles to his feet, even though he would rather sit at this table with Ryan for the rest of the night. “I owe you my life, Ryan Bergara. I’ll see you later.”

Ryan giggles, as quietly as he’s able to, and waves. “See you later, big guy.”

Shane starts to flee towards the other end of the shelves, opposite of where Ryan saw Quinta coming from. But, before he gets too far, he turns back around and quietly says: “I meant what I said! Good job on the Lizzie Borden case!”

And Ryan gives him another sunny grin and quietly says back: “Thanks for the confidence booster, Watson.”

Shane ends up racing away towards the History section because it’s close to Ryan but not close enough for it to be obvious that he was with him. When he gets there, Jen is looking between a few different books in the Central America section again, and Shane goes to her.

“Please pretend that I’m helping you find something. My boss is coming to kick my ass and I need to act like I wasn’t just sitting and talking about a cold case for a half an hour.”

Jen laughs. “Hanging out with Ryan again?”

“Dementor to human souls,” is all he can think to say, still reeling from Ryan’s smile and Quinta’s rage.

“Have you asked him out yet?”

He stops and looks at her, and even though he wants to, Shane can’t lie to Jen.

“No. But I called him ‘baby’.”

Jen looks back, and after a moment of consideration, nods. “I’ll accept it. It’s better than nothing.”

They only have to pretend to look through different books for half a minute before Quinta finally tracks him down, and Shane sees the clear surprise on her face. He knows it’s because she didn’t catch him with Ryan, and even though his insides are still going a million miles an hour, he counts it as a victory.

“I thought you’d be with your ghost hunter,” she tells him, after Jen thanks him and heads back to her table. Shane gives her a look that’s meant to convey his undying gratitude, and Jen just smiles in response. “That’s where you’ve been every other time I actually needed to come and find you for something.”

Shane feels a little guilty about his recently poor work ethic, so he schools his expression into something more apologetic. “Sorry. Ryan’s really hard to say no to.”

“Mhm.” She gives Shane another one of her knowing looks, and then turns to leave. “Thanks for actually doing some work today.”

“Oh, you know,” he laughs weakly. “Hustle never sleeps.”

“Don’t push your luck, Madej.”

“Yes, sir."

On his way back to the help desk, Shane leaves the History section on the side that takes him to Ryan’s table. He’s back to staring at his laptop in concentration, head cradled in his raised hand, pen flicking back and forth in his hand. Even when he’s just reading, Ryan takes his breath away, and Shane has to keep walking or he’ll end up at the table for the rest of his shift.

He can’t but notice that Ryan is still smiling, eyes softly squinted and lips just barely hiding his teeth. It makes Shane smile in return, and he practically floats back to the help desk. His only blessing is that Keith is off chatting with Becky and Sara is too busy studying for an exam to notice his dopey expression, so he gets to sit and think about Ryan in peace.

It doesn’t even ruin his mood when Keith comes back and asks: “Did you confess your undying love for the conspiracy theorist yet?” because Shane gets to ask back: “Did Becky Miller give you her phone number yet?” and watch Keith mope to his chair in defeat.

After making Ryan laugh until he cried and getting to tell Keith off, Shane chalks it up to one of his better work days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again so much for reading my fic!! Thank you so much to everyone who has left kudos and comments and taking time out of your day to read my dumbass little fic. I appreciate it more than I'll ever be able to put into words :") I'm hoping to have the next chapters out sooner because I'm getting the hang of writing these two more and am getting even more excited to write this fic!! I also plan on doing the entire 30 Day NSFW Challenge w Shyan so prep yourself but also I'm sorry??? fjsafksa 
> 
> Have a great day!! I'm off to re-watch the Boysenberry video twenty more times lol come holler about the ghouligans on tumblr with me @bodhirookes :-)


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lots of weird pining cuddles and the gang being too overbearing for shane's tastes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry yall faifdsjfa a lot of things happened at once in my personal life (finals, working more hours since school ended, a family emergency type of deal) and I just got too busy and too burned out to write for this fic, so I’m sorry it took me so long to update it. I promise on my life that the next chapter will not take this long to come out, and especially not the last one since I want to write the last chapter like rn lmao. Also, since I feel like I didn’t really emphasize this, this is kind of a slow burn fic because Ryan and Shane are uhhhh fucking dumbasses, but it’ll all be worth it here soon enough. Just pls hold on. I’m working on some other fics on the side that were easier for me write during my little hiatus that are not 20k of waiting and pining that I want to put up at some point so we can have some more long fics of that dank ~established relationship~ Also sorry this is like 3k more than the other chapters bc I know all about that length consistency wooooo
> 
> In this particular chapter, I’ll be talking about Eastern State Penitentiary and I 100% ripped shit from their video on it just to make the story flow better, so expect some nice flashbacks to when the Ghouligans visited that haunted ass building!!
> 
> Again, thank you so much for waiting patiently and giving me support!!! I thrive off of the feedback I get for this fic and I appreciate you so much :”)

Somehow, a miracle happens. Or, Shane’s version of a miracle happens- whatever. One minute he’s forcing himself through some dry as fuck reading for his Economics class, hating every minute of it and dreading class the following morning, and then the next he finds out that his professor cancelled class. He only skims the email to confirm that their class is cancelled (due to something about a sick child, which actually means his professor is going to be hungover in a few hours’ time) and promptly whoops in the middle of the library.

Sara pauses from secretly eating Goldfish out of her backpack and gives him an unimpressed look. “Please tell me this isn’t about Poe Dameron again.”

“Even better- Brad cancelled Econ, bitches.”

“I don’t actually know if that qualifies to be better than Poe Dameron even a little bit, but congrats, I guess.”

Keith groans and pauses from logging in returns to send him a look that is pure hatred. “Why the fuck do you get a morning off, Madej? I’ve been doing nothing but breaking bad for weeks and all you do is read cool shit about Cleopatra and the Salem witch trials.”

Shane is too elated to get mad over the jab at his major. “Have you ever had to read about the Cold War from Russia’s point of view and then write five essays about it over the course of three weeks?”

“No, but-”

“Okay, so consider shutting the fuck up for once. You also chose to be a Chemistry major despite everyone and Zach’s mom telling you not to, so you really don’t have anyone else to blame but yourself, Walt.”

Keith’s eyes turn into little itty bitty slits, and Shane hears it when Sara sighs tiredly next to them, fingers wiggling desperately towards her headphones.

“Have you ever had to do so many Stoichiometry problems that it would probably fill up the Holy Bible and then some? Have you ever had _Dan Adams as a professor?_ He’s the absolute worst! You try doing Stoich with Adams helping you along like gasoline helping flames along to a really old barn.”

“I did all of my Stoich in high school in under a week,” Shane dismisses, already off in a daze and trying to figure out to do with his suddenly very open night. “I also love Chemistry. I don’t give a shit, man.”

It’s enough to make Keith back down, something Shane’s only seen twice before. Instead of getting in his face or raising his voice the way he only does when arguing with him or Chris, Keith just staggers to his feet and says sadly: “I’m going to get a muffin and cry in the bathroom for a few.” and then disappears down to the basement.

“I think you might have really hurt his feelings this time,” Sara says, now secretly snacking on gummy bears. “I haven’t seen him that void of emotion since Eugene told Becky that her jeans looked really nice and Keith automatically assumed that Eugene was hitting on her. Even though he’s literally dating Keith’s best friend.”

Shane snorts; he’s trying to decide between marathoning the original _Star Wars_ trilogy plus _The Force Awakens_ (now that he’s brought up his one true love, Poe Dameron) or the _Captain America_ films (because he just saw some kid walk by who looked scarily like Sebastian Stan). “Good. Maybe it’ll encourage him to pull his head out of his ass for more than three minutes at a time when he’s hitting on Becky and her nice jeans.”

Shane has always thought that Eugene was mildly terrifying, despite being super sweet and funny, and he jumps a little when he appears out of nowhere minutes after Shane and Sara bring him up, Zach at his side.

“Hello boys,” Sara waves a Goldfish at them, and then shoves it into her mouth to hide it from Quinta’s probably prying eyes.

Zach smiles affectionately at her. “Where’s Keith at?”

“Sara thinks I upset him beyond repair because my 10 A.M. is cancelled tomorrow and he thought he deserved a break more than me and I basically told him it was his fault that he chose to be a Chem major.” Shane shrugs, putting his hands up in a ‘What can you do,’ kind of way. “It’s not my fault that his major sucks the life out of his angry soul.”

He expects some kind of throttling from Zach for making Keith upset, but instead, Zach just laughs and gives him an endearing thumbs up.

“Good on you, to be honest. He needs to know that everyone’s against him on that.”

Shane just gives him a weird look, but when he notices Eugene settling a protective arm over Zach’s shoulders, he turns back to his computer screen and pretends to type something in over his professor’s email.

“What are you two up to tonight?” Sara asks them, since Shane is incapable of acting like a normal human being in front of Eugene Lee Yang and his cute and friendly boyfriend. “Another wild night of studying Shakespeare together?”

Zach makes a pained noise. “Not tonight. We finished all of our shit for _Hamlet_ , thank fuck, so now we’re going to see the new _Deadpool_ movie and pretend that we don’t hate our lives thanks to Anne Westen and her poor teaching skills.”

Shane glances up from his computer to see Zach leaning comfortably against Eugene and them both smiling over at Sara, and he pushes his fear of Eugene away long enough to say: “I’m happy you guys get a night off, too. Tell us how the movie goes.”

“Will do!” Zach chirps, and then takes Eugene’s hand to guide him towards the stairs.

Before they disappear from sight, Eugene turns back and says: “Hey, Madej.”

Shane looks over at him, and the fear comes rushing back as though it never left. Which, to be fair, it didn’t at all. “What’s up?”

Eugene grins like a fucking lion, and Shane feels every single hair on his body stand up. “Lover boy’s still in the back looking through some spooky scary books, if you wanted to go kiss him goodnight before heading home for your crazy night in.”

Shane almost scowls at him (he’s _so_ gonna kill Keith for getting Zach and Eugene in on his obsession with a fucking ghost hunter), but after a small pause, stills completely. He doesn’t even notice Zach’s stifled laugh or Eugene’s victorious grin, too busy being hit by the best revelation he’s ever had.

Instead of going home by himself in thirty minutes, to watch _Star Wars_ or _Captain America,_ also by himself (at least until Sara gets home, since her shift is longer than his on Thursdays), he could spend some quality time with Ryan Bergara without the fear of Quinta coming over to kick him to the moon.

Sara almost chokes on some gummy bears trying not to laugh at him. “Christ, I can’t believe you’re about to spend the entire night talking about ghosts with him. You’re in so deep that you’re touching Hell, buddy.”

Shane might be offended by Sara’s apparent lack of support, but the sudden idea of spending more than thirty consecutive minutes in the company of Ryan is enough to steamroll right over that. He briefly considers running after Eugene to give him a hug or possibly sending him a fruit basket later in the week.

“Listen,” he tells her, as if Sara’s entire attention wasn’t already on him. “This might be my only shot. Ryan and I have kind of conflicting schedules, and I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth when it’s giving me a chance to uninterruptedly stare at him without Quinta coming over to skin me alive.”

Somewhere in between acknowledging his crush on Ryan in front of Sara and spending even more time over at his table has made Shane brave enough to shout about his sadly obvious affection for him. So, he doesn’t really care that he probably sounds like a fucking weirdo when _he potentially gets to spend the night hanging out with Ryan_.

Sara gives him a look that is part amusement and part exasperation. “I never said you shouldn't go for it- get a grip on yourself, you freak.”

This is how Shane ends up with his backpack clenched nervously in his hands twenty some minutes later. He ran to the back the second his shift ended and punched out like a madman, but now that he’s officially free for the night and going off of some half-assed plan, he feels less confident than he did when Eugene brought it up.

“Just go talk to him, Shane,” Sara says, still chugging away at returns. “I bet his chipper gay ass will be just as excited to hang out with you as yours is to hang out with him.”

In a moment of pure maturity, Shane sticks his tongue out at her, but then takes her advice and creeps towards the back of the library. True to Eugene’s word, Ryan is still set up at his table, books stacked up around him and his laptop open and his hands rushing to scribble out some notes. He’s writing them down in a notebook Shane gave him (" _It’s a spare one, dude. Please use it. It pains me to see your notes loose-leaf and all over the goddamn place."_ ) and the sight of it being used makes his heart do something strange. Even from across the room, Shane can see how soft he looks in a huge sweatshirt and joggers and a beanie, and he vaguely wonders if tonight’s the night he caves and kisses Ryan Bergara on his dumb, pretty mouth.

 _No time like the present_ , he thinks to himself, and then makes his way over to the table.

Ryan doesn’t even properly look up when Shane gets there, too absorbed in whatever he’s looking up, so Shane glances over some of the books he’s got out. There’s one of his regulars on Bigfoot, another couple of regulars on ghost hunting/experiencing paranormal encounters and activity, and some random one on prisons across the US.

“I’m starting to think you’re setting fires to escape from your boss,” Ryan tells him, smiling cheesily. Shane goes all soft and gooey, despite his anxiety. “There’s no way she’s oblivious to you sneaking out this late into your shift.”

This is when Shane decides to clear his throat, and tell Ryan: “Actually, my shift is over.”

Ryan stops typing as soon as the words leave his mouth, and Shane watches with tight lungs as Ryan looks up and up at him, and then at his backpack.

“You mean you’re done for the night?”

Shane swallows. “Yes.”

There’s a slight pause, and then Ryan asks: “Are you… are you coming over here to hang out with me?”

He feels like a big fucking idiot. He’s going to send Eugene a basket full of dogshit.

“Is that okay?”

When he asks this, Shane fears for the worst, fingers white-knuckled around the straps of his backpack, but then Ryan grins brightly and the world shifts back into place.

“You want to spend your free time with me? Talking about ghosts?”

He sounds amazed, and slightly breathless, and Shane couldn’t keep the adoration out of his voice if he tried.

“You think I spend more than half of my shift over here for no good reason, Bergara? I might think that your ghost theories are complete and utter horseshit, but you’re a funny dude. Thought you would have caught onto that weeks ago.”

“Fuck you man,” Ryan laughs, but he looks like he’s on Cloud 9, and Shane doesn’t really know what he did in his past lives to deserve this. “Of course I want to hang out with you. Idiot.”

Shane ducks his head a little to hide his goofy smile, and goes about the usual routine of pulling his chair out and getting comfortable.

“Uh uh.” Ryan stops him before he can fully sit, and proceeds to pull his own backpack off of the chair to his right. “Now that your boss isn’t gonna come and disembowel you for talking to me, we’re sitting on the same side of the table so I don’t have to point out ghost evidence sideways like a jackass.”

Even though he knows sitting closer to Ryan than he usually does on a night like this is a recipe for disaster, Shane readily moves to sit in the chair next to him. When he gets settled, he stretches his long legs out and props them up on the chair opposite of him, and lets out a deep, comfortable sigh. Ryan laughs quietly next to him.

“I bet you’re gonna regret this when you could be sleeping more before your 10 A.M. tomorrow.”

The tips of his ears burn, but since they’re sitting on the same side now, Ryan can’t see it so easily. “Actually, that’s mostly why I’m over here. My 10 A.M. got cancelled.”

Ryan stills again, fingers hovering over his keyboard, and the anxiety gives one last hoorah in Shane’s stomach.

“You’ve got, like, fourteen hours to yourself, and you’re gonna spend some of them with me? Instead of sleeping or watching movies or going out?”

Shane feels like he could make up a bunch of excuses- “My DVDs are still at my old house.” “My Netflix got suspended because I watched too many episodes of _How I Met Your Mother_ in a row.” “I’m a vampire so I don’t actually need sleep.” “I only go out with Sara and she’s working late.”- but instead, he feels like this is the night to be a little more honest.

“Yeah,” he says, softer than he anticipated. “I like hanging out with you. Figured it would be even better without Quinta trying to think of new and improved ways to threaten my life.”

He can see Ryan’s bright grin dwindle down into something more fond and cute, a mirror image of his own, and when he lightly knocks their shoulders together Shane feels like flying. Instead of grabbing Ryan’s hand or pressing a kiss to his forehead, Shane takes a deep breath and settles in.

“So what ugly part of human history are you digging up on this fine evening?”

Ryan taps on the book about US prisons with his pen. “I thought I’d start going for Eastern State Penitentiary, since you convinced me that Lizzie Borden was good pretty quickly and the _Queen Mary_ is a fine wine kind of case.”

“Lizzie Borden _was_ good, Ry. Mostly because it was a case you based around an unsolved murder and not whether her ghost still tries to decapitate people in her home.”

“Wow, thanks,” Ryan says dryly. He’s joined Shane in propping his feet up on a chair, and he hits Shane’s leg with his foot. “Well, this one’s on ghosts, so if you’re expecting a lot from me, I guess now is your time to change your mind and go home.”

“Please. You need me here to remind you of facts and logic so your case doesn’t go off of the rails.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Ryan sounds subtly pleased.

“Tell me about the history, then,” Shane sighs obnoxiously, making a big show of getting comfortable. “At least that part won’t want to make me shake you until your brain clicks back into place.”

After flipping him off, Ryan starts telling him about the history of Eastern State Penitentiary and how it evolved from a high-solitary penitentiary to a general prison where the lesser criminals and major criminals were mixed in together. He describes the kind of treatment prisoners received in each setting and how that affected the prison’s atmosphere and the psyche of the inmates.

“You’re telling me,” Shane starts during a pause, trying not to laugh or maybe scream. “That some fuckin’ dude died from getting a metal torture device put into his mouth?”

“Ain’t that some shit? That sounds like something Jigsaw would do.”

“That’s absolutely something that Jigsaw would do.”

Ryan starts making quiet creaking noises and moving his closed hands around in little circles, and Shane fights to not cackle at the imitation of the tricycle. Then Ryan growls, in a perfect impression of Jigsaw: “Gentlemen- I want to play a game. I’ve got plenty of ideas for your little prison.” and it’s all over.

Shane has to press a hand to his mouth to keep from snorting, and Ryan does the same, their heads pressed close together over his laptop. He can see Ryan’s smile in between the gaps in his fingers, and it’s mildly dizzying being so close to it.

“I take it you liked that?” Ryan asks once they’ve calmed down, grinning openly.

“Oh, just get on with it,” Shane says back, still trying to reel himself in. “At this rate, I’m going to believe Jigsaw exists more than these ghouls.”

Ryan’s main source in showcasing all of these pieces of evidence comes from some dude’s YouTube video when he booked out the entire prison and spent the night trapezing around it with his cameraman. His first piece of ghost evidence is in the form of a stabbing that took place between two cell partners, Joseph Havel and George Kopp.

“So, when this guy goes into Havel and Kopp’s cell, he uses a spirit box to ask them about the event.” Ryan tells him.

Shane makes a face. “When will I ever know peace from the spirit box.”

“Shut up and listen.” He hands Shane his earbuds, and like a good friend, Shane puts them in. “I promise you that you will hear something.”

Even though he highly doubts it, Shane dutifully sits and watches the section of the video where this guy is standing in a decrepit cell asking if Havel or Kopp are still around to answer some of his questions. The sound of the spirit box surprises him at first, and his disgusted face grows as it continues to spit out static and random noises that the YouTuber believes are words, if his red captions at different points in the video are anything to go by.

When the scene in Havel and Kopp’s cell is over, Ryan pauses the video and asks: “So, what do you think?”

“I think that I still hate the spirit box. And I also think that that was absolute bullshit.”

“How the fuck-” Ryan looks like he’s on the edge of a breakdown. “There’s clearly a point during it when Kopp is like ‘Are we through?’. It’s right there in the fucking audio, man.”

“Maybe the spirit box is like one of those dog whistles, and only people who believe in nonsense like ghosts and demons can hear these so-called words coming out of them.”

Ryan grumbles when he tells Shane to put the earbuds back in. “Luckily for you, we’ve got a bunch of other shit to go over, so there’s still time to prove to your skeptical ass that there are ghosts in this goddamn prison.”

“I can’t wait,” Shane chirps, because he genuinely can’t wait to spend time bickering with Ryan.

There are a few clips of the guy walking around different cell blocks and asking if there’s anyone there with him, followed by some strange noises that his audio recorder has picked up (Ryan explains that they’re called EVPs and isn’t amused when Shane asks if it stands for Extremely Vacuous and Pointless). There are some screams that Shane writes off as the building settling or creaking, some whispers that he writes off as the guy’s shoes scuffing against the ground, and a whistle that he says is probably from the maintenance man the guy mentioned at the start of the video.

“You’re actually insane!” Ryan yells as loud as he dares. “That’s clearly a whistle that came from right next to them, and right next to the cell that had that escape tunnel in it. It happened at the exact moment he walked into the cell! You don’t think they had a signal that they used to alert each other and keep guards from catching onto what they were doing? I bet you my life savings that that whistle was the signal they used to alert each other of approaching guards.”

“You can keep your $30.” he says, patting Ryan on the shoulder. “I’d feel bad stealing from someone who clearly is in need of a little pick-me-up.”

“I’m gonna pick _you_ up and Hulk-smash you into the fucking cafe downstairs. Jesus.”

Shane can tell when they get to the part of the video that really gets Ryan excited, because he starts squirming around and tapping the back of Shane’s hand.

“This is the best part- I don’t think you’re ready.”

He tells Ryan tonelessly: “Oh boy, let me strap in for this one,” but Ryan’s clear enthusiasm out-wins Shane’s sarcasm by miles.

The guy in the video has a little voiceover bit talking about how Al Capone stayed at Eastern for eight months, describing his luxurious prison cell and how he was supposedly haunted by a man named Jimmy Clark who was killed in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. As the YouTuber is setting up his spirit box to talk to Capone, Ryan leans even closer to Shane, until his head is practically resting on Shane’s shoulder. He wishes desperately that Ryan would just leave it there.

“If you seriously don’t believe in ghosts after this clip, I’m going to burst into tears.”

It’s low and warm against Shane’s ear, and even through the earbud and the playing video, he can hear the affection in Ryan’s voice. He almost misses the question the guy asks Capone because he’s so focused on the feeling of Ryan’s chin grazing his shoulder and the feeling of his finger still tapping against Shane’s hand and the smell of his fruity shampoo. Everything about Ryan Bergara is sweet and warm and it’s driving Shane up a wall.

He forces himself to pay attention to the video. The guy asks routine questions- “Are you here with me, Al?” “Can you say my name?”- and then asks “Do you not like me calling you Scarface?” which causes the spirit box to sputter out something that the guy interprets as “Nope!” At one point, the guy thinks that the box tells him “Shut up,” which makes Shane laugh a little even if he doesn’t think it’s true, because he’d also use his energy as a ghost to tell dumbass investigators to shut up.

He still doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to be looking for until Ryan’s hand clamps down on his, and the guy says: “Can you tell me what color my jacket is?” and the spirit box chokes out: “Brown and white,” and Ryan squeezes his hand like a viper.

He pauses the video, and Shane actually feels a little bad that he still doesn’t find the evidence compelling just because he knows Ryan’s excited face is probably going to fail. He wishes for the first time in his life that he could believe in the paranormal, even just for a minute.

Ryan’s staring at him with his big, expressive eyes and his beautiful smile, so Shane tries to think of a way to say what he thinks without completely destroying their friendship. “I think the last little part was the most compelling… but I still don’t think it was Al Capone talking to this rando about the color of his jacket at 3 A.M. on a Thursday night.”

The beaming grin on his face does disappear, but it mellows out into the fond, exasperated smile that Ryan always seems to be wearing when they’re talking to each other, and whatever anxiety still prickling at Shane’s insides melts away.

“Someday, dude,” he promises Shane. “Someday, I’m gonna get you to believe in ghosts.”

“Someday, I’m gonna get you to believe in science and facts.”

They grin stupidly at each other, both unwilling to give up their stances, and then Ryan resumes the video. Shane catches the eye of some girl across the library when he turns back to the laptop, and she mouths: “Just do it,” to him. He pretends to be invested in the ghosts to avoid her smirk.

They finish the video together, and Shane notes that Ryan doesn’t ever move his hand away, just continues to tap on Shane’s or squeeze it when he thinks something is extremely compelling or spooky. It’s incredibly distracting, but also incredibly soothing, so Shane tries to balance out his feeling of panic with his feeling of comfort, and watches the YouTuber finish up his trek around Eastern State Penitentiary as best as he can.

“Did you believe anything in the video? Anything at all? Even something small?”

Shane pretends to think about it for a second. “I did believe that the prison probably smelled weird when the guy pointed it out at the beginning of the video.”

Ryan’s deep sigh is all he gets in return.

“Is that all the evidence you’ve got for me?” Shane goads, just to see what else Ryan has planned. He takes the earbuds all of the way out and pretends to get to his feet. “Well, it was nice talking about prisoners stabbing each other and Al Capone telling that guy to shut up, but I’ve got better things to do. See you tomorrow.”

“Sit your giant ass down.” Ryan yanks him back into his chair, and Shane goes, laughing quietly. “That was just the surface of the evidence for Eastern. There’s plenty more where that came from. You’re just gonna have to sit and listen while I spell it all out for you- I bet by the end of the night you’ll be singing my praises about ghosts being real the whole time.”

“I bet.” Shane says back, but gets comfortable again and lets Ryan bring up more video evidence on Eastern State Penitentiary.

**_~.~.~_ **

He thinks that they’ve only been watching videos for maybe an hour or two; time slips by without fanfare, and Shane is so caught up in Ryan’s orangey smell and his soft, warm aura that he doesn’t even notice the library thinning out and going dark all around the edges. They’ve moved on from Eastern to other prisons, like Ohio State Penitentiary and Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, and Ryan has video and text evidence for paranormal sightings at all of them. Shane is lowkey a sadist, and enjoys listening to the history of these prisons and the horrors that took place within them amongst inmates and guards, but he never really hears or sees anything compelling.

Ryan has reached an all-time high in terms of homicidal tendencies, and his face is flushed a pretty pink from how much he’s had to hold himself back from yelling.

“All these fucking videos and articles and you still think I’m just pulling it out of my ass? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I never said you were pulling it out of your ass, persay- mostly just the people taking these videos and writing these ‘reports’ of ghost sightings. They’re bullshit, Ryan.”

“You’re fucking bullshit! This is unbelievable!”

Shane’s laughing as quietly as he can and trying to get Ryan to chill out- “We’re still in the library, you idiot, stop screaming-” when Andrew appears out of thin air in front of them.

“Are you two almost done?”

They both jump and turn towards him, equally surprised to hear someone else’s voice in the midst of their small, violent bubble. This is when Shane notices that the library is almost completely dark around them, and that they’re the only ones left at the rows of tables and chairs.

“Oh my God, is it already-”

“Closing time? Yes.” Andrew gives them a dorky smile. “Congratulations, you guys fought about ghosts for four solid hours and didn’t even notice. Now it’s time for you to go the fuck home. You better hurry before Adam comes over and physically takes you outside.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “Got it, Andrew.”

“Don’t be mean to us.” Ryan teases. “I’ll be seeing Steven tomorrow in Geology and he won’t be thrilled if he knows his boyfriend threatened us with violence.”

Andrew playfully glares at Ryan and then walks away, giving them another “Hurry up and leave, dumbasses,” over his shoulder.

Shane lets out a slow breath. “I guess we should pack up and go, though, since Adam has an early class and gets cranky when they have to stay here past 12:30.”

It’s a little sad, watching Ryan close his laptop and shove his notebook into his bag after it, and helping him to gather up the books he had been reading and putting them away. He wants more than anything to freeze time and spend a few more hours pressed close to Ryan’s side and watch stupid ghost evidence videos with him. Towards the end, they were practically glued to each other from ankle to shoulder, and it was the calmest Shane had ever felt in his entire life.

They walk quietly to the stairs that lead outside, talking a little more about some of the videos and evidence (or lack of) and now they’re whispering, as if afraid to break this moment while still inside of the library. He sees Andrew shutting off the computers at the help desk on their way out, and subtly flips him off when he makes a gesture between Shane and Ryan and the proximity of their bodies even when they’re standing up.

Once outside, Shane decides he wants to put off leaving Ryan for as long as he possibly can. Apparently, spending four hours (Jesus Christ that’s such a long time and he didn’t even _notice_ ) propped up in a library chair next to Ryan and telling him he’s a fool has made Shane brave.

“Hey, uh, do you want me to walk you back to your dorm room?” he asks, shoving his hands in his jeans so that Ryan won’t see them shaking. “I know you could probably punch through steel walls with those fucking canons on your arms, but I also know you’re afraid of the dark, so. I’ll walk with you if you want.”

Ryan laughs, open now that they’re outside, but Shane can swear that his face goes a little funny in the shadows. Then he notices how fucking cold it is outside, and how long he’s going to have to walk to get to the bus stop and then to his and Sara’s apartment.

“I actually live off campus.” Ryan tells him, softer than Shane was expecting. “Thank you, though- I appreciate the gesture even if it was lessened by you ogling at my arms and calling me a weenie.”

Shane feels himself flush and tries to blame it on the cold. “Fuck you, I wasn’t-” he definitely was- “Never mind. I was trying to be nice, but apparently chivalry is dead or whatever it is that those fuckboys say when girls don’t want to suck their dicks.”

“Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm room?” Ryan asks him back, and gives Shane a little push. “I know you’re not scared of the dark, but you couldn’t fend off a rabid chihuahua with your build.”

“I also live off campus, so I guess we both lucked out.” Shane smiles against his will. “Do you want me to walk you to your car?”

Ryan sighs, like Shane is going to be the death of him, but nods. “Sure, man. Let’s go.”

So they take off towards the parking lot by the library, this time in a companionable silence. Sometimes their arms bump accidentally, and sometimes they bump on purpose when Ryan feels like it or Shane is feeling brave, and it makes him feel at peace despite the chill and the late hour.

When they get to Ryan’s car, a cute little Honda Civic, he unlocks the door and opens it, but doesn’t get inside right away. He props an elbow up on top of the door and turns to look at Shane, his eyes glittering in the street lights.

“Where’s your car at? I can sit and wait until you get in it to drive away. Just so I know that no rabid chihuahuas come for your tall, defenseless ass.”

Shane puts a hand over his heart, like Ryan has wounded him greatly, but tells him point-blank: “I don’t have a car- I use the bus system. I was just walking you over here and now I’m gonna walk back over there so I can get on a bus filled with drunk people and third shifters who are late for their shifts and don’t give a single fuck.”

Ryan blinks. “You walked me all the way over to my car just so you can turn around and walk back by the library and down to the bus stop? Which one?”

“Down by Henry Hall.”

“Shane, that’s a fifteen minute walk!”

“Eh,” he shrugs. “I don’t mind. It’s okay, man, I know you really don’t like the dark, so I just wanted to help you out. I’ll just sing to myself or think of you jumping at videos of ghost hunting that you’ve already seen twenty times to help pass the walk.”

Ryan stares at him for one, two, three beats, with his mouth slightly ajar and his face completely void of any emotion that isn’t surprise. And then he points over towards the passenger seat.

“Get in, Madej- I’m taking you home. If you ride the bus at this time of night someone’s probably going to rob you or something.”

“I’ve done it before,” Shane protests, but is already moving around to get into Ryan’s car, the prospect of not having to sit next to someone stinking of marijuana pulling him in like a siren’s call. “It’s really not that bad. Everyone sits in silence or silence minus one drunk guy singing Britney Spears songs and I get home in about forty five minutes. Usually I just listen to music and dream about being in sweatpants.”

“Forty five minutes?” Ryan gapes at him, and they get into the car at the same time. The orangey smell of Ryan’s cologne is even stronger inside of his car, mixed with the soft smell of cotton and a Tropic Breeze air freshener, and Shane might be slightly obsessed with it. To the point where he’s going to pop one every time he smells orange or pineapple. “Jesus, Shane. I’m being serious when I say that the buses aren’t really safe that late at night. People could stab you or follow you home or something and the driver would probably never know.”

“Ryan, it’s fine,” he says, because he’s feeling kind of flustered. “I only do it if I need to stay late for assignments or if I go out late with some friends from other universities around here.”

Ryan makes another displeased noise and pulls out of the parking lot. “I don’t like it, man. If you ever need a ride late at night, let me know. I don’t like the thought of you taking the bus this late at night. I mean it. Just text me or something, I won’t be mad.”

“I don’t have your number.” he says weakly.

Using one hand to steer, Ryan reaches into his jacket pocket with the other and produces his phone; he hands it to Shane with his cute, dorky school ID out and proud. “Put your number in. Code’s 060399.”

“That’s a strange jumble of numbers. What does it mean?”

He’s barely gotten the contacts app open when Ryan says, easy as day: “Jake’s birthday, since it’s the only birthday I always remember,” and Shane feels like his heart is going to explode. He pretends to be completely engrossed in entering his contact info to keep Ryan from seeing the big, stupid grin on his face.

When he’s done, he slides Ryan’s phone back into his pocket for him. “All set. I texted myself so I have your number in case I need a ride home. Which I won’t, since it happens maybe five times a school year and I don’t want to bug you.”

“Just tell me where you live so I won’t pull over and knock some sense into you.”

Shane navigates him quietly, and they slide through the mostly dead streets in a comfortable state, talking quietly in between Shane navigating. Ryan tries to convince him to never go on the bus again past 9 P.M. and Shane tries to convince him that he has never and will never get murked on a public bus.

“The driver is usually the same person, Ryan, and she knows Krav Maga, I promise you she does, I’ve seen her throw people off of the bus before for trying to hit on her or touch her and she doesn’t fucking play around.”

“Well, she won’t be able to drop kick someone off of the bus and save you if you’re already dead, so try again.”

They even talk a little bit about the videos they had been watching, once Shane convinces Ryan to let the bus topic go, and they yell openly in the car and turn to face each other at red lights so they can make rude gestures and try to solidify their points.

Shane’s apartment complex comes into view sooner than he would have liked, only a fifteen minute drive away from the university. Ryan pulls up to the door that Shane tells him to, and then they sit in silence for a few seconds with the car in park. Shane thinks he should make a joke about ghosts again and then split, but the warm, openness of Ryan’s face and his own stupid hope make him blurt out:

“Do you want to come up? I was maybe considering watching _The Force Awakens_ when I found out my 10 A.M. got cancelled. We could make popcorn and just- hang out.”

“We’ve been hanging out for four and a half hours,” Ryan reminds him, but giggles to show Shane he doesn’t mean it in a malicious way. “How do you make your popcorn?”

“I take it out of the microwave thirty seconds before the timer goes off. Add a lot of butter and a little salt. Eat it.”

Ryan stares at him with something close to amazement. “I’m pretty sure we’re soulmates, man.”

Shane laughs to hide how much he wants to kiss Ryan on his smiling mouth. “Just because we eat popcorn the same way?”

“Is there a better reason than that?”

“I guess not.”

They stare at each other for a few more moments, and Shane wonders if he can pull the courage to actually kiss Ryan out of his ass or something, but then Ryan makes a sad noise and looks away.

“I’d love to come up and watch _The Force Awakens,_ but my 9 A.M. was, sadly, not cancelled.”

Shane suddenly feels really, really guilty. “Shit, man, I forgot you had such an early class. You didn’t have to take me home- you should have left earlier and gone to bed.”

“No, no, it’s okay! I promise! I was having a great time with you in the library, and I didn’t even notice it was getting so late until Andrew came over and kicked us out.” Ryan shrugs. “I’ve gone to class on less sleep, but I think four hours is pushing it when it’s not finals week.”

“Right,” Shane says, trying not to look like a kicked puppy for multiple reasons. “Well, I’ll let you get home then.”

He gathers up his backpack and clambers out of Ryan’s car, and before he shuts the door, ducks down to grin at him. He hopes he doesn’t look as disappointed as he feels, but when he sees the disappointment mirrored on Ryan’s face, he feels less like a moron.

“Thanks for the ride, Jennifer Love Hewitt. I’ll see you later.”

Ryan laughs loudly, much too loudly for the late hour, but it makes Shane laugh too. “I’ll see you later, big guy. And I mean it- you better text me if you need a ride. If I find out you’ve been riding the bus past 9:30, I’ll kick your ass.”

Shane just snorts again and shuts the door. Ryan waits until Shane is inside of his building with the door shut, and then waves before pulling out and away. Shane watches as his taillights disappear back down the road and tries not to go running after them like a fool.

When he gets up to his and Sara’s apartment, he’s not that surprised to see that she’s still awake and puttering around with _It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia_ playing on the TV. He is, however, surprised to see the spread of Chinese food on their coffee table and surprised by the sharp twinge his stomach gives at the smell of orange chicken.

“It just got here a few minutes ago.” Sara tells him without looking up from her phone. “I know you haven’t eaten since you stole some of my Goldfish at work, so help yourself.”

Shane heads to his room first to change into sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, and then goes back out to the living room. He folds himself up on the couch next to Sara and starts in on the cartoon of fried rice and orange chicken she bought specifically for him. He considers kissing her on the face or bursting into tears for the kind gesture.

“So did you end up spending the entire night with Boogara?”

“With who?”

“Your boyfriend? Ryan Bergara? He likes ghosts and his last name is Bergara, so- Boogara.”

Shane makes a face. He also plans to use that nickname at a later date. “He’s still not my boyfriend. But, yeah, I spent the entire night hanging out with him. Andrew had to come over and throw us out.”

Sara laughs. “I bet he was thrilled.”

“He absolutely was, if the way he was making hands between me and Ryan tells you anything.”

“Good man,” she says approvingly, and tears into a crab rangoon.

They watch the episode together for a few minutes, Shane devouring his food and Sara slowly working her way through her carton of lo mein and general tso. He’s on the way to calming down from hanging out with Ryan for so long as such a close proximity when his phone vibrates in his pocket. When he fishes it out, he finds a text from an unsaved numbers that reads:

_Douche Roof? That’s your contact name?_

_Don’t you remember when you called me that after I told you that the Whaley House was full of shit just like you?_

_Of course I do._

A pause.

_We should have matching contact names._

Shane immediately feels just as affected by Ryan as he had been all night, and they’re not even in the same fucking room. He makes a distressed noise around his mouthful of rice, and he sees Sara give him a look from out of the corner of his eye.

Like an idiot, he texts back, _Such as?_

_Remember when we came up with aliases that one day? When we were talking about the Sodder children?_

And that’s how Shane ends up as C.C. Tinsley in Ryan’s phone and Ryan ends up as Ricky Goldsworth in Shane’s. He must look as in love and fucked up as he feels because Sara stops the episode of _It’s Always Sunny_ to tell him:

“You spent the entire night together and you didn’t make a move? Lame.”

and Shane can do absolutely nothing but agree with her.

**_~.~.~_ **

Shane’s friends are starting to get bolder. Apparently, Andrew blabbed to everyone about catching him and Ryan four hours deep into a ghost evidence session ( _“It was not a fucking date, Keith!”_ ) and now any and all teasing is on the table.

“Are you sure nothing else happened but him trying to prove that ghosts are real?” Zach asks, leaning over Keith’s desk to leer at Shane.

Shane chokes on a sip of water he’d been trying to take. “ _No_ , oh my fuck, he didn’t try to blow me under the table or anything. What’s wrong with you?”

“I saw you guys every once in a while when I was putting books away,” Keith adds, and Shane hates the conniving look on his face. “He looked like he wanted to.”

Shane’s face is so red that it feels like he’s going to start sweating fire. “Please stop before he or Quinta hears you, Christ.”

Eugene, for some reason, jumps onto Shane’s side. “I don’t see what you’re being all high and mighty about, Keith- you still act like you would let Becky Miller kick you in the face and then thank her for it afterwards. Are you ever going to ask her out? At least Shane talks to Ryan for more than a few minutes at a time and is making steady progress in snatching him up.”

This comment incites a war, until Sara has to get in between the four boys so that they won’t start swinging fists. They’re all used to Keith and Zach’s special brand of humor and fighting together, but it’s obvious why Shane and Eugene were never supposed to be friends- when they’re working together, they’re absolutely lethal.

Sometimes the picking on Shane gets better when Ned shows up, because he just talks about how he wooed Ariel and how Shane is headed in a good direction to do the same to Ryan, but sometimes it gets worse, because Ned is a shithead. He usually ends up siding with Keith and Zach, and then Eugene can’t help but gravitate towards their side since, like himself and Zach, Ned has his shit together, and then it becomes almost unbearable. The four of them work together like an insanely fine-tuned machine, their personalities entirely different but also exactly the same, and more often than not when they’re all ganging up on Shane he has to escape to the third floor and pretend to fix the printer until they go away.

One on memorable occasion, Jen and Maycie show up with Steven in tow while the four are tearing into Shane and he’s trying his best to stay afloat.

“What the hell is going on here?” Jen asks; in her giant hoodie and scarf and beanie, she looks about as terrifying as a polar bear. “Should I call someone before Keith and Shane start beating each other up? _Again_?”

“Nah, we’re good,” Eugene tells her, all smiles. “We’re just trying to show Madej why he’s being a fucking idiot and needs to ask Ryan out before we all graduate and move away from each other and he dies sad and alone.”

Maycie raises her eyebrows, but says nothing.

Steven tries to come to Shane’s aid, because that’s the kind of person he is. “Aw, c’mon you guys, leave him alone. It’s not like it’s a one-sided thing. Ryan hasn’t tried to ask him out, either, and all he ever talks about is Shane. Ask Jen.”

“He’s right,” Jen confirms, and Shane doesn’t really know what to do with this information while under the weight of eight sets of eyes.

Steven pats Shane on the arm comfortingly. “It’s okay, man- maybe Ryan will grow a pair since you can’t. Or we’ll all suffer together until the end of time. It’s hard to say right now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Shane sees Andrew coming up the steps to get ready for his shift (because Keith gets out early on Mondays, thank fuck) and he hopes for once in his life that Andrew will be a bro and save him.

“What’s up with the family reunion over here?” he asks, and then catches Steven’s eye. The change from calm and casual turns into love eyes and a stupid smile almost instantaneously, and Shane wonders if that’s what he looks like whenever he sees Ryan. “Hey, baby.”

Andrew goes to give Steven a hello kiss that they all moan and groan at, even though they all love Andrew and Steven the best, and then he looks at them all again.

“Really, though, did I miss a gathering notice? I didn’t get a million texts from Ned telling me I was late to something.”

“You’re not late for anything,” Ned tells him. “We’re all just taking turns trying to talk some sense into our primary bachelor, Shane Madej.”

Andrew nods. “About just fucking asking Ryan out? Got it. Please feel free to continue.”

“Please feel free to not continue,” Shane pretty much yells, and gets a few stares from other people around the library. “I don’t know why you guys have to make such a spectacle of my unrequited crush on Ryan Bergara. Can’t you all harass me about it when we’re not at my place of employment that he also frequents?”

“Oh my fucking _God_ ,” Keith swears, and this sets off another round of debating and ridiculing.

The final straw is when Shane meets Daysha for the first time. The usual crowd is hovering by the help desk, trying to weedle more reactions out of Shane that might result in him proclaiming his love for Ryan, when a girl with long braids wiggles her way in between Eugene and Andrew. Shane jumps at the chance to help her with something so he can get the fuck away from them all.

“Hey,” he says, giving her a manic grin. “Can I help you find anything?”

She stares at him for a few seconds, the others all falling silent and watching her watch him. She glances over at Keith for a moment, but seems to take him in and not like what she sees, because her eyes return to Shane almost immediately.

And then she says: “So you’re the tall idiot.”

Shane blinks. “Um-”

“That’s him,” Keith laughs, as if he isn’t only an inch shorter than Shane. “Look no further.”

Instead of reacting to Keith, the girl leans closer and smiles at him. “I’m Daysha.”

It takes Shane only a few seconds to put the pieces together in his head, and then he lets out a shrill, deflating balloon noise. “Are you?”

“Yep.” Daysha gives him a more obvious once-over, much to the amusement of Zach, and then she jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “He’s pretty much waiting for you to ask him out, bro. I’d get on it before Josh from Statistics tries to give him his number for the fifth time. Or Chelsea from Film. Or Luke from-”

Shane gets up from his seat before she can finish. He feels like his skin is pulling too tightly over his bones, like his breath is coming too short with all of his friends and Ryan’s best friend staring at him, like he’s going to scream if he has to look at her amused, unfamiliar face and Keith’s asmused, familiar face looking back at him for a second longer. He gets up without saying a word and strides away from the help desk without looking back, even when Ned catcalls after him about finally going to ask Ryan out.

He doesn’t even notice where he’s going until he sees Ryan’s head bent over his notebook (still the one Shane gave him, and doesn’t _that_ make Shane want to yell from the roof) and even though he should probably not want to see Ryan right now, it’s literally all he wants.

When he stops in front of the table, Ryan holds up a hand, a signal to let him finish his thought before talking. Shane is actually really fucking in love with this damn kid.

“I saw your boss come through here just a few minutes ago, so maybe you should wait a little bit lon-” Ryan finally looks at him, _really_ looks at him, and he stops. “Are you okay, dude?”

Shane feels like he could collapse at any second. “No.”

Ryan doesn’t freak out or go into panicked-mom-mode like Shane thought he might. He uses his foot to shove the chair next to him over until it’s touching the wall, and then gestures towards the space he just created. “C’mon- if you crawl under here, no one should be able to see you.”

Shane does as he’s told without a second thought. His mind briefly pulls up Zach asking if Ryan blew him under the table the night they hung out until closing time, but he throws it away as soon as it enters. He loves his friends, really, but they’re so fucking annoying and persistent and aren’t letting him go at his own pace, and he just wants to be left alone for a while. He folds himself up into a little ball under the table, right next to Ryan’s leg, and after a few moments of hesitation, rests his head on Ryan’s knee.

“What’s wrong, Shane?” he asks quietly, and Shane almost flinches when he feels Ryan’s hand slide across his shoulders. “What happened?”

Shane doesn’t even know where to begin, and stupidly, the feeling of Ryan’s soft, comforting hand soothing across his shoulders makes him tear up. He’s just cranky from not getting a lot of sleep and fighting with Keith about every single goddamn thing and having Ned tell him it’s really easy to put everything on the line and tell Ryan about his feelings.

“I’m just tired,” Shane says just as quietly, and tries to keep his voice from wobbling. “I just want to be away from everyone for a second.”

“You can sit here for as long as you like.” Ryan tells him. “I bet Sara will cover for you.”

“She will,” Shane agrees, sniffling dumbly, but Ryan is an angel and pretends not to hear the hitch in his voice. His emotions are seriously so fucked right now. “Thank you.”

“Of course, dude.” Ryan moves his hand off of Shane’s shoulders, and even though Shane knows he should, so he doesn’t look like a weirdo with one hand on the table and one hand under it, it makes his chest ache more than it had been before. But then, after some fumbling, Ryan’s hand reappears with an earbud in it. “You want to listen to some music with me?”

Shane nods against his knee, and then takes the earbud. When Ryan knows he’s got it in, he starts up the music, and hearing the first chords of “Livewire” by Oh Wonder seconds later immediately makes Shane’s entire body start to relax.

They sit like this as Oh Wonder’s debut album continues to play, working their way through songs that Shane knows like the back of his hand (because of course Ryan would like Oh Wonder, would somehow know that the album is a piece of Shane’s soul) and Ryan seems to know like his own name. Somewhere around “White Blood”, when Shane is dozing lightly and no longer in danger of crying, he feels Ryan’s hand graze the side of his face. He stirs a little, but once he realizes that Ryan is trying to take his glasses off, Shane moves his head to help him. When his glasses are off, he presses his face back into Ryan’s knee better than he was able to before.

After a few moments, Ryan’s hand returns to his shoulders, almost hesitantly. And then it slides across his shoulder blades until he’s got his arm wrapped carefully around Shane and they’re pretty much hugging. Shane feels too content and exhausted to cry again, but the bittersweet pulse in his chest makes sure to remind him that he wants to.

He loses himself in this wonderful haze of drowsiness, and the feeling of Ryan’s arm settled around his back, and his sweet, fruity smell, and the song “The Rain”. He feels more relaxed in the library than he has in a while. Occasionally, Ryan’s hand will move closer to his neck, as if to remind him that he’s still there, that he’s still ready and willing to help Shane out, and Shane smiles against his jeans.

He gets away with it until they’re halfway through “Shark”, which was better than he hoped for. He feels Ryan tense up in the middle of the song, but before he can move away from Ryan and asks what’s up, he sees a pair of shoes and a voice he knows ask: “Have you seen Shane? I’ve been looking all over for him.”

Shane holds his breath, suddenly petrified that Ryan is going to turn him in or Quinta is going to figure out that he’s hiding under the table. He’ll willingly go back to work, since he’s still clocked in and that’s what he’s supposed to be doing, but he also doesn’t want to go back to his friends or try to explain what’s going on to Quinta, who will probably just tell him: “That’s what you get for flirting with him on the job.”

But Ryan, once again, comes to his rescue. He pushes his hand into the back of Shane’s hair, carefully, slowly, and presses down so that Shane will keep his head on Ryan’s knee. It feels more like a protective kind of ‘Stay where you are, I got this.’ gesture than Ryan trying to keep them both calm.

“I can’t say that I have. I’ve been, uh, studying the whole time I’ve been here. He said hi to me but that’s about it.” Ryan pretends to think for a minute, pinkie soothing over Shane’s right ear. “I think I saw him go with someone over to the Anthropology section earlier, but he also said something about fixing a printer since the IT people are ‘lazy and unreliable’, so I’m not really sure. Sorry.”

He hears Quinta huff out something that sounds curiously like a laugh. “That’s okay- I was just wondering. Sara said something about him needing to get away from the help desk and I was just trying to see if he got sick or something. Thanks, though.” He sees Quinta’s shoes turn away, but she doesn’t leave immediately; she stops long enough to tell Ryan: “You know he’s crazy about you, right? If I didn’t have to force him to do his job, he’d be over here his entire shift trying to make you smile. I’ve never seen him leave the help desk for any other reason than Keith or helping someone find a book, and he’s worked here for months. You’re something special, man.”

She does leave, after that, and Shane doesn’t know if he should get cagey again or just accept his fate. Ryan continues to lightly stroke his ear, to keep him steady until the coast is clear, and he considers pretending to be asleep so that he doesn’t have to face him after Quinta’s comment.

“She’s gone,” Ryan murmurs down to him, and something in his voice makes Shane look up.

Even without his glasses on, Shane can see that he looks infinitely, indescribably soft, with big, gooey eyes and an endeared smile and and a completely relaxed posture. Something in his look makes Shane’s stomach flip over, and he wonders if maybe his friends aren’t completely insane, after all, if maybe Ryan feels the same way about him. Shane has certainly never looked at any of his friends with that level of tenderness- not even Sara. He doesn’t really know what to do with it now, is still exhausted beyond belief and feeling weirdly fragile, so all he does is smile back up at Ryan.

“Thank you.”

Ryan’s face blooms, even warmer and sweeter than before, and he moves his hand to push it through the front of Shane’s hair. “Of course. Go back to sleep. I’ll keep the others away until you’re ready.”  

Shane does exactly that, feeling warm and sweet in the exact same ways that Ryan looked down at him with. He dozes back off to the comforting rhythm of Ryan’s hand moving through his hair.

**_~.~.~_ **

Ryan wakes him up for real twenty minutes before his shift ends. Shane, regretfully, rouses himself and crawls out from under the table. He’s still sleepy and a little shy, so he just tells Ryan: “Thank you forever,” in a matching sleepy, shy voice. Ryan gives him another beautiful smile that looks even more stunning with his glasses back on and says Shane can come to him whenever he needs, then lets him tiptoe his way up to the help desk.

Sara and Keith are both there, but the others aren’t, and he lets out a deep, weary breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Sara smiles cutely at him when he sits down, and Shane smiles back, feeling much more relaxed.

“Are you feeling better?” she asks.

And Shane is telling the truth when he nods. “Yeah, I feel a lot better now.” After a few seconds, he adds, because Keith is listening to music and knocking out returns: “He let me sit under the table where no one could see me and sleep on his knee and listen to music with him.”

Sara’s eyes shine. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Shane can hear how fucking ridiculously in love with Ryan he is by his voice alone, and doesn’t want to know what his face looks like. “Sara, I think he might actually like me too.”

“You think?” she teases back, but it’s not like the others- it’s caring and loving. She reaches out and squeezes his hand. “Take your time, Shane. The others are going to back off.”

“Did you chew them out?”

“You bet your ass I did. I was already getting mad, but after you stormed off today, I gave them a piece of my mind. They’ll leave you alone now, promise.”

“I love you, Sara.”

“Love you too, Shane.” She blinks at him, eyes trained above his. “Your hair’s messier than usual.”

Shane grins like a dope. “He was running his hands through it.”

After a moment of silence, Sara exhales, and gives him another loving, understanding smile. “Like I said- take your time. But I don’t think you really need to, you know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fsjdkfas I still feel like this chapter is missing the groove my other two chapters had but that’s okay!! I’m sure the next chapters will flow better since I’ll be writing them uhhhhh not a month and a half after the first ones lmao I’m in a writing mood rn though and on summer break so I’m hoping to crank these last two chapters out pretty quickly (especially because they’re going to be super fun to write!!) 
> 
> Shout out to Ryan Bergara for being a goober older brother and posting about Jake’s birthday all day long on Instagram so I could get the date right. My brother’s birthday is my passcode so I thought that would be a good fun fact to add into the story. Also, Oh Wonder is my shit and their debut album reminds me a lot of my freshman year of college when I was actually attending a big university (I miss it so much wahhhh I hate community college) so I had to slip them into this fic bc the overall tone of that album is really what helped me set the tone of this story. 
> 
> Also yall watch that Sims video with Kelsey?? Watching her experience the true Ryan and Shane Effect™ was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Also??? Boot Bros??? I'm still crying


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slow burn gets slightly less slow but is still slow lolz and there's lots of pop culture mentions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beginning notes: holy hell you guys. your comments on the last chapter were absolutely amazing. i’m so blessed and humbled and every other word that falls into that category to have readers at all, let alone ones that leave me such amazing and generous comments. i literally cried reading them fdsaijfaksf your kindness is really just something else that i never thought i would receive in a million years. thank you from the bottom of my heart. and to anyone who has left me comments in the first two chapters: i also thank you from the bottom of my heart. i know i didn’t respond to those but i was still feeling really shy when i published this at first and was scared to talk to anyone so i’m sorry i didn’t personally tell all of you thank you, but i really do love you and appreciate your kind words. i hope that the rest of this fic lives up to your expectations.
> 
> this chapter was really fun to write because it finally includes the character entrance i’ve been dying to write the entire time and it finally fucking happened and it feels complete now. the slow burn continues to burn on, but i promise that in the final chapter, it’s going to be overflowing with feels and fluff and protective boys (aka my ult weakness) but for now here’s the 4th chapter ~the calm before the storm~
> 
> i’m also working on making a playlist for this fic of some songs i used to draw inspiration from so i’ll probably include that in the last chapter!! i love music just as much as i love writing/reading and i’m very passionate about it so i hope yall enjoy that as well :-)
> 
>  
> 
> ***warning: this chapter contains light spoilers for american horror story: roanoke but idk actually because i’m still not sure what the fuck happened in that season bc it was so shitty. also a really tiny spoiler from coven but isn’t really that important, just a fun little surprise that connects to bfu true crime* ******

After weeks and weeks of anxiety and tiptoeing around Ryan and his friends, Shane finally feels like he can breathe again. He doesn’t feel so hunted or watched every time he even _looks_ over in the other boy’s direction, and as a result of Sara telling their friends off for harassing him, all of them come forward to apologize.

“She called us fucking assholes literally every other word,” Zach recalls to him. “It was so scary. We definitely deserved it, dude, I’m really sorry.”

“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” Andrew tells him during a shift change-over one night. “I’ve been dating Steven since, like, middle school, so sometimes I forget that other people don’t have it as easy as us.”

Even Ned get serious about it. “It’s hard to tell when you’re genuinely upset because you usually take the insults and throw them right back. I’m really sorry, Shane, I promise none of us are going to do it again.”

During one of his shifts after the small meltdown, he’s going through a box of new books and printing out labels for them when someone sets a coffee and a banana nut muffin down next to him. He looks up and up to see that, to his complete and utter (horror?) surprise that it’s Keith. Shane stares at the softened, apologetic look on his face.

“I didn’t mean to take it that far, man.” Keith tells him quietly, and fidgets with his nametag like he wants to stop being serious but also wants to get this right. “I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings and made fun of your boyfriend.”

“He’s still not my boyfriend,” Shane sighs, but his voice comes out all soft and forgiving to match Keith’s.

Keith smiles without any points or edges. “He will be soon enough.”

And Shane finds himself smiling back. “Yeah, he might.”

Sara eyes the muffin when she comes back from a twenty minute excursion around the library. “I was gonna tell you all about this dumbass kid I just helped who doesn’t know the difference between Geology and Genealogy, but this is much more interesting. I know you never go downstairs- where’d you get that from?”

Shane makes a big scene of looking all around them, knowing perfectly well that Keith is off to chat with Becky for the foreseeable future since Quinta has the day off, and then turns to his best friend. He gestures for her to come in closer, and when their glasses are almost crushed together, he whispers:

“Keith bought it for me.”

Sara’s eyes go comically wide. “What?”

“Yeah,” Shane laughs quietly. “I was printing out some labels for the new books we got and he just. Brought it to me. And then he apologized for last week.”

“No shit,” Sara breathes, and sits down heavily in her chair. “That means that everyone’s finally pulled their heads out of their asses and said something to you. God fucking bless.”

Shane feels a rush of love for her. “That was your doing, buddy. Everyone told me how terrifying you were when you went off on them.”  

“Good,” Sara replies, turning to log into the library’s system. “No one upsets my baddest bitch and gets away with it.”

Shane snorts and leans down to kiss her loudly on the cheek, much to Sara’s amusement; they end up splitting the muffin when Shane offers her half.

In addition to his friends finally chilling out, his relationship with Ryan has finally reached a point that he’s really happy with. Even after talking to Sara about it and finally acknowledging that Ryan might feel the same way about him, Shane is still scared shitless thinking about making a move. So he lets go of the panic he felt at the thought of Ryan discovering his giant crush on him, but also doesn’t force himself to take it to the next level, and if Ryan notices this change, he doesn’t say anything. He just continues to be his usual beautiful, sassy self, and encourages Shane to come over and investigate with him whether he’s on the job or off it. He takes Shane home a few more times, and even though they can’t hang out as long as they did the night Econ got cancelled, it still feels like progress. On the nights they can’t spend more time together they text or call each other on the phone, and Shane spends a lot of class time sending Ryan memes and trying not to laugh when Ryan gives as good as he gets.

It’s comfortable and sweet and it feels right, even if Shane still aches to plant one on Ryan.

Neither of them really bring up when Shane crawled under the table. Ryan checked up on him throughout the rest of that day, and continued to do so throughout the weekend, but no one says “Hey, thanks for letting me cuddle with you in the middle of my shift and cry it out.” or, “Hey, I really liked hugging you for forty minutes and running my hands through your hair, let’s do it again sometime when you’re not really sad.” But whatever tenderness Ryan looked at him with and Shane felt remains, and Ryan doesn’t try to hide it, so neither does Shane. Ryan protectively hiding him under the table and lying right to Quinta’s face still makes Shane’s stomach flip when he thinks about it, and he now feels the same kind of protectiveness over Ryan.

Which is why, when Shane is putting books away one afternoon and sees Ryan looking downright miserable, his fix-it instincts kick into action immediately. He promptly throws the rest of his books onto an open table and walks over to where Ryan is holding his head in both of his hands and staring moodily down at his notebook.

“Hey, what’s up, little guy?” Shane asks, resting his hand on one tense shoulder. “You look like you’re going to throw up. Or scream, maybe, I’m not sure since I’ve never seen that look on your face before.”

Ryan gives releases a full body sigh, and then tilts his head back to look up at him. He looks a lot frustrated and a little tired, and Shane tries not to focus on the fact that Ryan is definitely leaning into his touch. Like, a lot. Almost to the point where he looks like he wants to face-plant right into Shane’s abdomen, which. Shane is totally cool with and not having a gay crisis about.

“I’m stuck on the Zodiac case,” he whines. “I’ve hit walls in it before but never like this. I’m stuck really, really badly.”

Shane hums. “Do you want me to pick you up and shake you around like in _Big Hero 6_? To get that big brain going again?”

“No offense, dude, but I don’t think you could pick me up more than a few inches off of the ground.”

Shane, regretfully, takes a few seconds to stare intensely at Ryan’s muscles; he’s not sure that he’d ever survive seeing what is probably a six pack underneath his loose t-shirt, seeing as how he can barely handle what muscles are already on display. Ryan flexes after Shane stares and stares, and he feels himself starting to blush a little. Goddammit.

He jerks his eyes away from Ryan’s ridiculous arms, but is instead met by his ridiculous smirk, the asshole. “No, I don’t suppose that I could.”

Ryan laughs, pleased, but even through his smile, Shane can see the annoyance and exhaustion that’s resulted from him pouring over this unsolved case. Shane has seen him frustrated and pissed off before when he gets stuck, but he’s never seen Ryan like this. He’s never seen Ryan looking like he wants to give up.

Seeing the defeat starting to overtake the determination makes something sharp twist in his chest, and without a second thought, he takes action. Ryan watches silently as Shane shuts his notebook for him, and then his laptop, and stacks it all up next to his discarded pile of library books.

“You’re gonna take a break for a while, okay?” Shane tells him more than asks, and waves his hand around Ryan’s entire body. “I don’t like… _this_.”

“What’s ‘this’?”

“The whole ‘I can’t do it, I’m bad at investigating, I’m never going to solve this case, I should just give up now’ attitude you’ve got going on, all because you’re in a little rut.” Shane waits until Ryan is looking him in the eye, sad pout and all on full display. “If there’s anything I know about Ryan Steven Bergara, it’s that he doesn’t fucking quit.”

The pout gets sucked back into Ryan’s mouth, and in its place is a look of slight astonishment. “What do you mean?”

They stare at each other, and then Shane huffs out a laugh. He’s never going to stop being completely endeared by this ghost-obsessed dork.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean that you don’t ever give up. Literally never have I ever seen you give up on a case, no matter how pointless it seems or indecipherable or unapproachable. It doesn’t matter if there are two thousand suspects or three, or if the evidence has been purposely messed with or if there’s not any evidence at all, or if I’m over here telling you that ghosts aren’t real or there’s some dude on YouTube giving us all plausible video footage. No matter what, you don’t ever give up on a case, and I’m not going to let you start now. I know you’ve been working on the Zodiac case for months, and that you’re making insanely great progress in organizing it, so I’m not going to let you sit here and think that you can’t move forwards or keep at it. Because you’re the only one who can do it, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Shane,” Ryan whispers, like he might cry, and it’s such a mirrored image of Shane just over a week ago that it makes his heart hurt.

He pushes forwards. “So, you’re not giving up tonight- you’re just taking a break, okay? With me.”

Ryan swallows a few times and then nods. Shane doesn’t even glance over at the seat that he used to take when coming to talk to Ryan, and instead sits down in the same chair he sat in during the night they stayed until midnight. Ryan turns to face him as soon as he’s situated, and Shane scoots his chair forwards until their knees are pressed together. He doesn’t miss the way some of the tension leaves Ryan’s shoulders, and catalogues the information for a later date: **_!!!! Ryan Bergara is very comforted by physical touch !!!!_**

“So, what’s your master plan to get me to relax, Madej?” Ryan asks, even though he already looks ten times better.

Shane hums and thinks to himself for a moment, since he actually has no idea; he looks down at Ryan’s books for inspiration, but decides to steer away from any cases Ryan is working on. He glances over at the Myths & Legends section, thinking he could maybe talk about one of his own favorite creepy cases or urban legends, and then looks over towards the History section, where he has a Ryan-level repertoire of insane stories stored inside of his head. For a few breaths, his head is blank, and then his brain stitches magic and history together and it all falls into place.

He turns back to Ryan and smiles conspiratorially. “Have you ever heard of the Lost Colony of Roanoke?”

Ryan shakes his head and leans closer, an intrigued look already on his face. It’s the same look he wears whenever he’s telling Shane about some cold case or a haunting.

“It’s this really weird, creepy story about one of the first groups of settlers that came to America from England. And it’s all true!”

“Jerk,” Ryan laughs, lightly knocking their knees together. “Just get on with it.”

Shane laughs back. “So, there was this group of colonists that came over to America from England, right? There was about 120 of them that sailed over with this dude named John White and ended up on Roanoke Island, which is now a part of North Carolina. Almost immediately after they arrived there and got settled, they started experiencing attacks from local Native American tribes, since they were, you know, encroaching on their territory.”

“Right.”

“Yeah, so- the Native Americans were understandably upset, but the colonists were not understanding that at all! Shocker, I know! So they talked to John White, their leader, and asked him to sail back to England to get more food, tools, and colonists to bring back to America to help them out.”

“After only being there for a month?” Ryan asks, dumbfounded. “What the fuck?”

“Exactly,” Shane agrees. He’s told this story before, to Sara and some of their other friends, and it makes him want to laugh seeing Ryan react the same exact way as they all did. “So, John White is like ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea!’ and he gets back in his boat and sails back to England to get all the shit they forgot to bring the first time. But, the problem is, is that he left at a _really_ bad time. Not like, ‘Oh man, I should have left a half an hour ago to avoid this traffic,’ bad, but like, ‘Hey, England and Spain are going to war with each other right now, and Spain has a really intense Naval fleet, so I’m actually going to be stuck in England forever when I get back,’ bad.”

Ryan groans quietly. “No.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Shane tells him, and is suddenly struck by the thought that he and Ryan are actually a lot more similar than he’s given them credit for, in terms of being storytellers. “White got to England while they were right on the verge of going to war with Spain, so he got held up in England for a long ass time. He didn’t get back to America for three years after leaving the colonists.”

“ _Three fucking years_?”

“Yep! He was gone for three whole years from the time he left Roanoke Island to the time he returned to it.”

“Jesus Christ.” Ryan looks absolutely delighted by this turn of events. “Talk about a fucking holdup.”

“Oh, it gets better.” Shane leans a little bit closer, like Ryan does when he’s about to drop the Big Fact. “So, eventually, White gets back to America with all of the extra supplies right? He thinks he did great because he got the food, tools, and people. But when he gets back to Roanoke Island, he discovers that all of the colonists have disappeared without a trace.”

Shane almost starts laughing at the stunned look Ryan gives him, his entire face rounded out by shock. “Are you serious?”

“I’m not kidding. He got there with the other colonists and all of the ones that had been living there before were just fucking gone. The only clue that they left behind was this tree that had the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into it.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well, White assumed it meant that the colonists had fled to Croatoan Island about fifty miles down from Roanoke, but both times that he attempted to sail down there, storms rolled in and he had to turn back. And since the boat he was using was privately owned, he wasn’t allowed to go and look a third time, so he ended up sailing back to England and moving to Ireland where he later passed away, never knowing what happened to his family or the other colonists.”

“What the fuck.”

“And the weirdest part is is that no one has ever been able to fully determine what happened to all of them, and there’s never been any traces of bodies or a mass grave found on the island where they all disappeared.”

“That’s insane,” Ryan says, voice reflecting the awe on his face. “What do they think happened to them then? There must be some ideas, man, there was over a hundred of them!”

“Of course people have come up with theories, but none of them have ever been able to provide conclusive evidence or a concrete story on what happened on the island. A lot of people believe that they were all murdered by the local Native American tribe that they’d been having problems with before and the Natives probably took the bodies and put them out into the ocean.”

“I thought you just said that no one ever found evidence of bodies, though.”

“Ryan, it was the 1500s- they didn’t have forensics back then or a way to comb the ocean for remains. They couldn’t even brush their teeth back then.”

He laughs, and knocks their knees together again. “Okay, fair point.”

“There are also people who think that they ended up joining the tribe on Croatoan Island and assimilated into tribe life. Archaeologists found tools that belonged to Europeans on the island just a few years ago, but they’re not sure if they belonged to the Roanoke colony or a group of settlers that come to America about a century later. Another theory is that there’s a secret fort hidden somewhere on the map White drew during other trips over to America and that he covered it up with other scraps of paper to make it look like he made a mistake, but was actually trying to conceal the location of the fort from potential spies.” Ryan’s mouth widens from a 0 shape to more of an O shape, and Shane decides to hit him with the last ones. “There are a few theories that you’d probably like. Some people think that the colonists got mass abducted by aliens, which would explain why their bodies were never recovered and there were no traces of what happened to them.

“Fuck you.”

“There’s another one that’s just as Ryan-esque,” Shane laughs. “Some even think that the colonists were wiped out by a zombie plague.”

Ryan tries to look pissed by Shane’s obvious teasing, but all of the tension has left his body and there’s a clear grin pulling at the corners of his mouth and shining brightly in his eyes. He looks infinitely better than he did before Shane came over to him.

“What do you think happened then, smartass?”

“I think that it’s very clear that the Native Americans killed all or most of them and threw their bodies into the ocean.”

Ryan rolls his eyes and mimics Shane under his breath.

“Listen, listen- I’ve done research on this before-”

“The Lost Colony of Roanoke? Obviously, dude.”

“No- research on how dead bodies decompose in the ocean, keep up, Ryan. Anyways,” Shane pushes forwards, taking infinite joy in the disgusted expression on Ryan’s face. “the bodies will end up going under water for a little bit, right? Then after some of the little critters in the sea have picked at them, their bodies float back up to the surface for the birds to eat, and then after their bodies have decomposed or been eaten enough, their bones sink to the bottom of the ocean again. It all plays out. They’re gone without a trace.”

“You’re insane,” Ryan tells him, clearly trying not to laugh. “I can’t believe you did research on how bodies decompose in the ocean.”

“You literally research cold cases for fun. You have a murder board for some dude who ran around the streets of London and cut out the wombs of prostitutes.”

“That’s different! I do it in a righteous sort of way because I want to see the guilty parties brought to justice. You spent your time and effort researching how bodies decompose in the ocean in order to further your theory on the Lost Colony of Roanoke.”

“Relax, Steve Rogers.” Shane nudges his foot against Ryan’s ankle, and grins when Ryan nudges him back. “It’s okay to admit that you’re cracked enough to think that the colony was abducted by aliens like Amelia Earhart. No one will be shocked and/or surprised.”

“You’re probably a serial killer,” Ryan pretends to roll right over the Steve Rogers comment, but Shane knows him enough to recognize the twitching corners of Ryan’s mouth and the shy way he glances away means that he’s secretly preening. “That’s the only reason why you’d willingly subject yourself to research on how a body decomposes.”

“People have done worse to research, figure out, and represent the Lost Colony. Like for the sixth season of _American Horror Story._ They did some crazy shit with Roanoke in that season.” Shane pauses for a second, and then winces. “Also some bad things, but.”

Ryan suddenly lights up, hands closing around Shane’s where they’re resting on his knees. It makes his mouth dry up instantly. “They did an _American Horror Story_ season on it?”

“Kind of. It was… something.”

Shane does not want to tell Ryan that it was a really, really bad season and crush his hopes.

“That’s so cool! I just started it after months of nagging from Jake, but I’m still on _Asylum_. Now I’ll actually know what the fuck is going on when I get to that season.”

He tries and fails to hide his grimace. “Sure.”

“Is it really that bad?” Ryan laughs, squeezing his hands. “I know that a lot of people think that the first three seasons are amazing and the rest are shitty.”

“ _Freak Show_ is really conflicting because it starts out amazing but quickly loses steam, and _Hotel_ was automatically better because Lady Gaga is in it, but yeah- _Roanoke_ is actually really, really fucking bad. Sorry, man. Evan Peters kisses a dude in it, though, so it has that going for it.”

“It’s enough for me to keep watching. I’ll text you when I watch it and keep you updated.”

“You’ll probably watch about ten minutes of it and then call me on the phone to scream out loud. The rage you feel during _Roanoke_ is not easily put into words.”

For a second, Ryan just looks up at him, lips pursed cutely, and then he asks: “Are you doing anything this weekend?”

Shane tries to quell the hope that rises unbidden. “Nope.”

“I’ll see you on Saturday at 6 P.M. sharp.”

“6?”

“It’ll be dark by then. We can’t watch _American Horror Story_ when it’s daylight, you dingus.”

“Christ, forgive me for thinking anything different,” Shane rolls his eyes, but then smiles openly. “How far away from campus is it? I’ll take the bus over and bring snacks or something.”

Ryan scowls. “You’re not riding the bus. Someone will stab you.”

“Oh my God, Ryan, stop acting like my mom, I’m not going to talk to any strangers or evoke some random fit of rage from any of them by sitting silently and waiting for my stop.”  

“I don’t care. I’ll come get you at 5:30 and then we can grab takeout or something.” Ryan lets go of one of his hands and stabs a finger into Shane’s chest. “No buses.”

Shane uses his freed hand to salute Ryan. “You got it, Captain Rogers.”

“Shut up, dumbass.” Ryan grins sweetly, and Shane grins back, a helpless idiot. “That’s a for-sure yes, right? I’m going to pick you up Saturday night and watch a bad season of _American Horror Story_ with you?”

“Yes, it’s a for-sure yes.”

Ryan’s giant, toothy smile turns buttery around the edges, and Shane has a sneaking, gay suspicion that this is a smile just for him. He feels it in the harsh beating of his heart and the curl of warmth in his belly and the way Ryan is stilling holding his hand.

“Cool beans.”

“‘Cool beans’? Are you actually a middle-aged woman? I can’t take another second of this.” Shane makes a big show of getting up, letting their hands gently disconnect, and shoving his chair back into place. “I spun you a great story of mystery and spookiness and you ended it with ‘Cool beans’. I just got scammed.”

Ryan smothers what would have been a loud, full laugh into his palm. “Fuck you, dude.”

Shane smiles. “I’m sorry, but I actually do have to go now. I just saw Quinta go into the Physics section and I don’t want to die before I get to re-watch the shittiest season of television with a ghost hunter.”

“Whatever,” Ryan sighs, and pretends like he’s going right back to his work without sparing Shane another look. But then, just as Shane is turning away, a quiet goodbye at the ready, Ryan reaches out and grabs onto the bottom of his sweater. His eyes are warm and rich when they meet Shane’s, a beautiful, clear difference from fifteen minutes ago. “Hey- thanks for sitting with me for a little bit. I really needed that.”

Shane thinks he could make light of it or just tell him it was nothing, but the combination of his overwhelming affection for Ryan Bergara and the smoothed-out lines of his shoulders and easy smile in place of everything being a rigid, tight mess makes him reconsider. He looks at Ryan for half a breath, heart slowing and then tripping over itself, and he very deliberately reaches out to card his hand through Ryan’s floppy hair. His happy look morphs into a surprised, pleased one, and Shane almost chokes when he very obviously leans into his touch, just like he did when Shane first came over here.

With one of his big hands cupping the crown of Ryan’s head, in a very familiar and protective gesture, Shane gives him a smile that is achingly honest. “Of course, Ry. I wanted to return the favor.”

Ryan lightly flushes, imperceptible to anyone who hasn’t spent weeks and days and hours staring at his face like it holds the secrets to the universe. He looks up at Shane in naked amazement, and something a little deeper than fondness. But Shane has to work, and he doesn’t want to kiss Ryan for the first time in the middle of a crowded, Quinta-and-Keith-filled library, so he lets his hand slide all the way through Ryan’s hair and takes a step back.

“I’ll see you on Saturday.”

When Ryan answers back, the smile he had on just for Shane returns and puts the sun to shame. “See you, big guy.”

He practically skips back up to the help desk, and manages to get into his seat before Quinta comes back over. Sara is openly grinning at him and trying not to laugh, and Shane jostles their shoulders together.

“Did God himself just descended down from the heavens to tell you that ghosts aren’t real?”

“Leave me alone,” Shane says, laughing happily. “I’m in love!”

“Clearly.” Sara gives him a once-over, but there’s not a piece of her that’s being mocking or judgemental. “Boogara in the same good mood?”

“I hope so.”

She smiles softly. “I don’t doubt it.”

They’re happily chugging away at a boatload of returns together, chatting about this or that ( _“You finally scored a date with him, huh?” “It’s just eating takeout and watching the worst season of_ American Horror Story, _Sara, calm down.” “I think you’re the one who needs to calm down, buddy.”_ ) when Quinta comes up to the desk. Even though Shane is clearly in his seat and doing work, she gives him a suspicious look.

“Did you go see Ryan today?”

Shane gives her a happy half-lie. “Just for a moment to see what he was up to, but that was about it. Why? Is something up?”

Quinta barely represses a look of confusion. “Nothing. He just looks like won the lottery and found out that Bigfoot is his neighbor all at the same time.”

Sara snorts, but all Shane can do is give Quinta a very un-Shane-like smile that is big and wide and dazzling. “That’s great! He seemed stressed earlier, so I’m glad he’s feeling better.”

His boss stares at him for a moment, caught between laughing and calling Shane out on his bullshit, but she eventually just smiles at him. “You’re gonna ask him out soon, right?”

“I’m working on it,” he says, and for the first time, means it.

“Good. I’ll come in late and cover a shift if I have to, but you two need to get it done and over with.” She shakes her head and walks towards the back room, leaving two grinning best friends behind her.

“I love that woman when she doesn’t want to kill me.” Shane tells Sara. “Kinda like how the Native Americans definitely killed the colonists of Roanoke and threw them out into the sea.”

“What the fuck.”

**_~.~.~_ **

As promised, Ryan comes to get him on Saturday right around 5:30. Shane changes his clothes a few times before settling on an old sweater and a pair of joggers, figuring that since he’s going to be folded up a couch for the next eight hours and in the dark, it really doesn’t matter what he looks like.

“He already wants to move to the ‘burbs and raise a few kids with you,” Sara informs him over another episode of _It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia._ “You could wear a trash bag and he’d be tripping over himself to get into your personal space.”

“Thanks,” Shane says dryly, and slips into his shoes. “I’ll be back really late so sorry if I wake you up.”

“As long as it’s not because Ryan is with you and you two are trying to fornicate on our coffee table then I don’t care.”

Shane flips her off before heading down to the parking lot where Ryan is sitting and waiting for him.

“Wow, I can see you got dressed up for the occasion.” Ryan laughs when Shane climbs into his car; he’s also wearing his best set of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt with the Lakers logo on the front of it.

“Listen, when you have limbs like mine, you have to let them breathe or you turn into a giant mess of stiff, crackled bones. It’s like a glow stick pre-breakage when I get up after being sandwiched in on a couch for hours at a time.”

Ryan laughs, and then reaches out to tug on the beanie Shane is wearing. “It’s cute.”

Shane’s breath stutters, but thankfully, the sound of Ryan’s music covers it up. “We can’t all be drop dead gorgeous every second of the day no matter what we’re wearing.”

“Are you saying that I’m drop dead gorgeous?”

He is going to die during the night sometime. Ryan Bergara is going to end his life.

Instead of answering, Shane asks: “Where are we getting dinner from? I haven’t eaten in two hours and I feel like I’m shriveling up.”

“I bet,” Ryan says, and pulls out of the apartment complex. “I was thinking we could swing by Chipotle, if that’s okay with you.”

Shane turns back to him, and in half a second, decides that he wants to play the game, too. “If you take me to Chipotle, I’ll marry you as soon as we get out of the car.”

Ryan glances over at him, face doing a funny little wave. “O-oh?”

“I can start sketching the vows out right now while we’re driving.”

“Jesus,” Ryan laughs at him, and Shane is excited to see his hands tightening and loosening over and over again on the steering wheel. “I guess I’ll take that as a yes.”

Sara might really be onto something.

When they get to Chipotle, Ryan tells him, while they’re waiting in line: “So, I guess I should have said something about this earlier, but it completely slipped my mind until I was leaving to come and get you.”

Shane braces himself. _If this guy says anything about having a boyfriend or a girlfriend I’m going to immediately burst into tears._ “Okay?”

Ryan hesitates, and then says, “Jake and Daysha are going to be home and want to watch _American Horror Story_ with us, too. Is that okay?”

As soon as the tension enters, it leaves, and Shane fakes an angry face. “Absolutely not. Your roommates are not allowed to do things in their own house. What the fuck, Bergara?”

Ryan hits him lightly in the stomach, but grins, obviously relieved. “I was just making sure, asshole.”

“Of course they can watch it with us. I’m the one invading their space.”

“I don’t think that’s the right word for it. They’re both really excited to meet you.”

Shane doesn’t know if Daysha told Ryan about their first meeting at all, so he tries to hide his panic by smirking. “You talk about me a lot?”

Ryan scoffs and moves to place his order for himself and the other two, but Shane can see the tips of his ears turning pink under the harsh lights of Chipotle’s lobby. Maybe it’s a good thing that Jake and Daysha are going to be joining them so Shane doesn’t do something stupid like kiss Ryan’s ears or climb into his lab and aggressively tell him he’s the most beautiful person in the entire world.

When they make it to Ryan’s apartment, some nice little complex about ten minutes away from their university, Jake is the one who pulls open the door for them. He’s probably the cutest kid Shane has ever seen, with the same floofy hair and toothy grin as Ryan, but a rounder, softer face and a pair of chunky glasses. Shane wants tuck him into bed at night and read him bedtime stories.

“Wow, you _are_ tall,” is the first thing that Jake says to him, looking up at Shane. “It’s cool to finally put a name to a height.”

Shane laughs. “Uh, thanks, I think?”

“Jake, stop being a freak and help me with these.” Ryan shoves the drink carrier at him, and if Shane were looking closer, he’d say that Ryan is pouting. “It’s not going to make him feel welcomed if you’re just standing and staring at him.”

“Isn’t that what you do?”

Ryan kicks a shoe at him and scurries off into the apartment, yelling: “No I don’t, asshole,” over his shoulder.

Jake turns back to Shane and nods sympathetically. “It is, in fact, what he does, so I’m sorry about that. My brother’s just really obsessed with you and the only way he knows how to cope with it is by stalking you and talking about you nonstop, so I apologize on both of our behalves. I get it from him. Monkey say, monkey do and all that jazz.”

“ _Jacob Alexander Bergara!”_

Shane makes a noise of surprise. “Hey, my middle name is Alexander too! What a small world!”

Jake laughs and grabs onto Shane’s wrist to pull him along to wherever his brother went. “Ryan, your boyfriend and I have the same middle name! It’s fate, I tell you.”

“Stop being such a dick!” Jake takes them into the living room, where Ryan is setting out everyone’s food over the coffee table and also squishing his face against it. “Can’t you stop for five seconds? I’ll take back my allowance of you to join us during the show.”

“No you won’t because Daysha will let me watch it with you guys.” He flings an arm out across the room. “Please, pick a side, any side. Our lovely sectional allows all three of us to lay completely horizontal at any given time, so you have plenty of room to pick from. Make yourself at home.”

Shane smiles. “Thanks, Jake.”

He sits down on the very left leg of the couch and reaches into the takeout bag to get his burrito bowl and chips. While he’s opening everything up, he watches Ryan and Jake bicker over the food and why Ryan didn’t get him extra extra guacamole, and then he looks around the living room. Besides the large sectional couch, there are some posters and a huge entertainment center against the opposite wall that holds a flat screen TV, some framed photos of the three residents of the apartment (which, adorable), a record player next to a bunch of records, an Xbox One next to bunch of games, and a million and one movies. They’re in alphabetical order and Shane sees everything on it from _The Breakfast Club_ to _The Empire Strikes back_ to _Halloween_ to _Ratatouille._ He even sees a handful of Nicholas Sparks films, and giggles.

“I can’t believe you own _The Last Song_.”

“That’s Daysha’s,” Ryan tells him, and Shane believes him for .5 seconds until Daysha’s voice floats down the hallway and sing-songs: “No it’s noooot.”

In between Shane and Jake laughing and Ryan trying to plead his case, Daysha finally makes an appearance. She looks much less menacing than she did in the library, with a pair of leggings and a UCLA sweatshirt on, and when she locks eyes Shane, hers are not as cat-like. She grins at him and hops over to the coffee table to find her food in the mess.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Daysha tells him, and leans down to give him a small, soft hug. In his ear, just loud enough for only them to hear, she whispers, “Fucking finally, my man.”

Shane coughs to conceal his moan of horror. “You too, Daysha.”

Ryan looks like a confused puppy, eyes curious and head cocked to the side. “I wasn’t aware you two had already met.”

“We chatted for a little bit at the library once.” Daysha says, with a familiar, mischievous expression. “Just enough for me to introduce myself to him and for him to tell me that you’re gonna get me some Fenty Beauty for going to the Dauphine Orleans Hotel with you this summer.”

Ryan groans dramatically. “Shane, why? Why would you do that?”

“Because she deserves it for going to these random-ass places with you and listening to you dribble about ghosts for a whole weekend.”

Ryan makes a show of rolling his eyes, but then smiles sweetly. “Yeah, she does.”

He waits until they’re all eating and Ryan and Jake are back to play-fighting to ask: “So, are you going to explain why you own _The_ _Last Song_?”

Jake laughs. “There’s no explaining to do. Ryan is a hopeless romantic through and through.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” he repeats, poking Ryan with his fork. “You might as well just admit it, bro.”

Ryan sighs with his entire body, and when he finally looks at Shane, he accepts defeat pretty quickly. “All the romance movies are mine. I admit it.”

He thinks maybe he would be laughing if he wasn’t so endeared by everything Ryan does. Shane isn’t above teasing, though, so he uses Ryan’s words in the car against him. “That’s cute.”

Ryan flicks a tortilla strip at him, but when he goes back to eating his burrito, he’s smiling softly and Shane wants to kiss him all over. He sees Daysha and Jake exchange an amused look, but when they don’t say anything else, he doesn’t either, and they all chat quietly while eating. Shane learns that Daysha is a Marketing major and makes beauty/lifestyle/review videos on YouTube in her free time (he promises to watch some later and subscribe) and that Jake is a freshman majoring in Music Production and spends a lot of his time outside of school working at this cool music store downtown and attending as many concerts as he can get tickets for. A lot of the records on the left side of the entertainment center are his, and he even takes Shane down to his room to show him some of his recording equipment and the instruments he has on hand. A discussion about their favorite music leads to Shane making plans to going to a few concerts with either Jake, Ryan and Jake, or all of three of them, and promising Jake to go with him to some groups he’s never heard of before.

To say that he falls in love with all three of them a little by the time they settle down to watch _American Horror Story_ is an understatement. It’s only been an hour and he would already do anything that Jake or Daysha asked of him, and Ryan can probably tell if his pleased, knowing smile is anything to go by.

“Ryan told us that you said this season is shitty,” Jake announces while he’s booting up Netflix.

“It is.”

He makes an unhappy noise. “We’re all watching _American Horror Story together_ and I really, really like it. No offense, but I hope you’re wrong about this.”

Shane feels a little bad. “I mean, I-I thought it was bad, but it might not be bad to you, I hope you like it, I wasn’t trying to-”

“Jake, stop giving him a hard time.” Ryan, having left to grab some blankets, stops in front of the TV. “We’re supposed to have a fun night, whether this season sucks or not.”  

“I was kidding,” Jake snarks back, but his face softens when he turns to Shane. “I really was just messing around- I fully prepared myself to be disappointed weeks ago when my friends warned me of the same thing.”

When _American Horror Story: Roanoke_ is loaded onto their TV, Ryan pads over to the couch and climbs onto it so that he’s right next to Shane. Daysha is sprawled out across the leg opposite of Shane, and Jake is sprawled out across the middle one, so it’s not like Ryan has anywhere else to go besides the floor, but when he sits next to Shane, he _sits next to_ Shane. He watches in a stunned silence as Ryan curls up into a little muscly ball at his right side, spreads a blanket across their laps, and then curls his arms around Shane’s and rests his head on Shane’s shoulder. They end up completely pressed against each other, and while it’s wonderfully comforting and warm, Shane also feels like his heart is going to jump out of his chest.

“I get scared easily,” Ryan tells him quietly, as if Shane would ask him to move away. “I do better when I’m holding onto someone. I hope that’s okay.”

At least Jake and Daysha don’t call them out too much on it. Daysha just sends Shane a very blatant wink from across the room and Jake tells them: “No kissing or we’ll make you watch it on the balcony,” before pressing play.  

Shane is very, very glad that he’s already seen _Roanoke_. If this had been his first time watching the season, he would have missed every single important detail during the first two episodes. The combined warmth of Ryan’s body being pressed fully into his and the smell of oranges and fabric softener hanging over them makes Shane’s head fuzzy. He feels like he could fall into a soothing, hazy trance, and also like his skin is alive and sparking with all of the unsaid words between them. He can’t tell if it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him or the catalyst of the end of their comfortable friendship. Maybe a little bit of both.

Luckily, by the third episode, the three roommates are so agitated that it starts to draw him out of the bubble of heat and Ryan’s fruity cologne.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Jake gripes. “Why don’t they just leave the fucking house?”

“Because then there wouldn’t be a season.”

“Shut up, Daysha, that’s not what I meant.”

“ _Well,_ If they leave, then they won’t find Flora, you idiot.”

“Is that what’s going on? I thought they were just running around and looking at different places in the house while that Bilbo Baggins dude tries to give them life advice.”

“Jake, why are you like this.”

Ryan tilts his head up so that he and Shane make eye contact, and their mouths are so, so close together. When Ryan smiles and huffs out a laugh, Shane forces himself to laugh back and not be a creep.

“Would you two stop?” Ryan grouches. “If you start fighting we’re going to have to turn it off and then we’ll never see Evan Peters’ gay kissing scene.”

That shuts them up.

“Gay kissing, you said?” Jake asks, and then turns the volume up. “Say no more. We’re getting through this, bitches.”

The Gay Evan Peters Scenes™ come and go with the three of them shouting in excitement and then in horror, and Jake shouts about it being the only thing that gets him through “this whole dumbass episode.” When they finally finish the fifth episode, Daysha looks over at Shane in bewilderment.

“Well, what the fuck? They left the house! There’s a whole half a season left!”

Shane tries and fails to hide his grin; he’s felt much more relaxed being pressed against Ryan for so long that he now feels brave enough to fuck around.

“If we watch the next episode, you’ll find out.”

Daysha makes a harried motion in Jake’s direction, and Jake is quick to give into her demands and start the next episode. It takes them all less than a minute to discover that, in a bizarre turn of events, that the first portion of _Roanoke_ was actually a weird story-within-a-story deal, and that none of it actually happened. It makes Ryan, Jake, and Daysha all cuss loudly and Shane laugh until there are tears in his eyes.

“This is bullshit!” Daysha yells after getting her point across, and then jumps to her feet. “Pause this nonsense, Jake, I’m going to the bathroom and then making some popcorn so I don’t scream at the top of my lungs for getting played.”

Jake decides to make popcorn for all of them like the sweetheart Shane knows he is-

“It’s so I don’t punch a hole through the wall.”

-and leaves him and Ryan alone in the living room. Ryan is still bitching and moaning and Shane is still cracking up at all of their angry expressions.

“It’s not funny, dude, I feel like I just got hit by a bus. What a piece of shit move.”

“I told you that this season is a raging dumpster fire. It stinks.”

Ryan, for the first time in literal hours, unwraps his arms from around Shane’s and flops back onto the couch. He looks stupidly adorable in his pajamas and glasses and fluffy hair, spread eagle, the light of his giant TV casting a soft glow over him. Shane is absolutely in love with him, and barely stops himself from laying next to Ryan and cuddling up with him like he wants to.

He groans obnoxiously, and pokes Shane with one socked foot. “We need to come up with a way to fix this.”

“What do you mean?” Shane asks, amused, and indulges himself enough to curl a hand around Ryan’s ankle. His traitorous thumb moves across the little bone on the side without his permission. “The next season is about a clown cult or something- not exactly redeeming.”

“No, I don’t mean more _American Horror Story_ \- even though I’m sure the rest of _Asylum_ and _Coven_ will help.”

“ _Coven_ is my favorite season,” Shane agrees. “Kathy Bates is in it. And so is someone else you love.”

Ryan looks away from the ceiling. “Who?”

“You’re just going to have to wait and see.”

Shane can already picture Ryan losing his shit when the witches make contact with the Axeman of New Orleans.

Ryan pokes him again with his toes. “Fuckin’ tease.”

He laughs quietly, and squeezes Ryan’s ankle. “Really, though, what’s gonna help you with the overwhelmingly disappointing reality of _Roanoke_?”

“I don’t know, just that I’m gonna need to watch something else to heal the pain of wasting Sarah Paulson’s potential. Maybe we could watch _Star Wars_.”

“Did you mean, like, tomorrow?”

Ryan nods, and smiles cutely over at him. “Would you want to maybe spend the night and start when we all get up tomorrow?”

The thought of falling asleep on Ryan’s couch and possibly falling asleep next to him and waking up next to him and spending an entire morning together in pajamas sounds too good to be true, like something out of Shane’s cheesiest, deepest dreams.

“I can’t stay the night.” Shane says, disappointed, and watches as the dream disappears. “I have to work early tomorrow. It’s my monthly Sunday shift.”

“Oh,” Ryan says, equally disappointed, and Shane scrambles to get rid of the sadness on his face.

“But, I’ll be out by 1, so I could always come over then and squeeze in as much as we can.”

It does the trick, and Ryan’s beautiful grin is back in place. “Sounds good to me.”

After a few minutes of them debating over whether to start with _The Phantom Menace_ or _A New Hope_ , and trying to figure out if there’s a way for them to watch a movie in between classes and work, Jake comes back with four giant bowls of popcorn.

“Thank you, you’re an angel,” Shane says after he takes his bowl, almost ready to cry because of the fucking Bergara brothers and their damn loveliness. “Oh my God, is this movie theater popcorn?”

“Our mom got one of those special popcorn makers for us as part of my graduation present, since Ryan and I go through it like animals. And we’re kind of pretentious about popcorn.”

“Pop-Secret is acceptable if this kind isn’t available,” Ryan shakes his bowl. “But Act II is the spawn of Satan. That shit belongs in Hell where it came from.”

Jake just silently nods, mouth full of popcorn. Eventually, Daysha returns as well, and they all take a moment to collect themselves and prepare for the worst ( _“It honestly only gets worse from here, gang, sorry.”_ ). Ryan cozies back up to Shane’s side and presses his head to his shoulder, arms curling back around Shane when their popcorn is gone. Shane is warm, happy, and full, and can’t be fucked to get re-angry over how terrible the writing for _Roanoke_ is when Ryan is using him like a pillow.

Ryan was jumpy during the first half of the show for sure, clenching his arms around Shane during jumpscares and super gory scenes, but now that he fully understands what’s going on, he gets even clingier during the second half. As the characters die one by one and their deaths get more and more gruesome, Ryan’s hold on him tightens and his body gets closer. When they’re in the final two episodes, Ryan is basically sitting on top of him sideways and almost has his face tucked completely into Shane’s neck. Shane is excited and slightly panicked to discover that they fit together seamlessly.

In between Ryan’s shaking and whimpering (which honestly drives Shane fucking _nuts_ , imaging what other noises he can make), the three of them are yelling loudly and cursing as the action unfolds. Shane spends the better part of three hours laughing at their violent and angry reactions, and when Ryan is distracted by being scared or outraged, Shane will subtly curl closer to him or try to work up the courage to rest his head on top of Ryan’s. He never does, but the fact that he’s considering it speaks volumes- almost louder than the volume of Daysha’s pissed screaming.

The hours it takes to finish _Roanoke_ slip by without Shane noticing closely, too caught up in the comforting atmosphere of the apartment and Ryan’s warmth. It feels like maybe days have passed, or just a few minutes, but when the last episode finishes and they end up at the suggestions page, Shane feels like he’s slowly pulling himself out of some alternate dimension.

The four of them sit together in silence for a while, the roommates trying to absorb the ridiculousness of the sixth season of _American Horror Story,_ and Shane trying to stitch the memory of Ryan clinging to him into his mind forever.

Eventually, Daysha sits up on her leg of the sectional, and announces, very quietly: “That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

Jake whines. “I think I’ve gone numb from how fucking terrible the plotline was. Wow. I haven’t been this wrecked since I watched the ninth season of _Supernatural_.”

She shakes her head, genuinely upset. “They really did Angela Bassett dirty. I’m pissed. I’m going to sleep so I can try to convince myself that this never happened.”

Daysha pushes herself up and gathers her pillow and blanket into her arms. Looking small and sleepy and annoyed, she walks away from them and down the hall to her bedroom. Shane considers calling a goodnight to her, but doesn’t have to worry about it when she reappears after a few moments.

“Good night, Shane.” she says, and her disappointed expression is replaced by a small smile. She leans over the back of the couch to wrap her arms around him and Ryan, until they’re in a warm and slightly awkward group hug. “It was fun to watch that shitstorm with you. Hopefully we can all watch something together that doesn’t make me want to throw a rock at our TV.”

Shane laughs. “I’d like that. Good night.”

She goes back to her room, after telling the brothers good night, and then Jake makes to follow her. He grabs his pillow and blanket and stumbles over to where Ryan and Shane are still curled up together like a pair of cats.

“I’m also fucking destroyed from that garbage show, so I’m gonna go sleep it off or call my mom and cry.”

“Please don’t,” Ryan says, giggling.

Jake struggles with his bedding for a moment, and then holds out a fist to Shane. “It was great hanging out with you, dude. Feel free to come over as often as you want.”

Shane feels the warmth in his gut float up to his chest. He knocks his fist against Jake’s. “Thanks. I enjoyed this a lot- I’ll come over whenever Ryan lets me.”

“Psh- you don’t need his permission. I’ll cover for you. We can hang out and become BFFs without him.”

“Go to bed, punk,” Ryan grumbles, and kicks Jake’s ass with his foot.

Like the little shit that he is, Jake blows a kiss down to Ryan and then disappears into his bedroom. Ryan doesn’t move, so Shane doesn’t either, and they watch as Netflix recommends them Disney movies, _Black Mirror_ , and Seth Rogen’s comedy special.

Eventually, Ryan clears his throat and moves so that his head is against the back of the couch. Close, but still propped up so that they can look at each other, even though that’s probably incredibly dangerous at the late hour and high level of affection flowing between them.

“I feel like someone broke into my house and robbed me.” Ryan says dramatically, and Shane snorts. “I’m being serious! I know you said it was going to be bad, but I guess I didn’t really prepare myself for that shitshow.”

“You still have _Asylum_ and _Coven_ , and _Hotel_ if you love it for more than Lady Gaga.” Shane reminds him, rapping his knuckles against one of Ryan’s kneecaps. He is, somehow, still curled up into a ball. “And we also have _Star Wars_ tomorrow. Well- today. Later. So we’ll get through this together with the help of Luke Skywalker and well-fit Sarah Paulson roles.”

Ryan jolts when he says this, as if coming out of the trance that Shane has been under for the past eight hours. He leans around Shane to look at his TV, at where the cable box shows what time it is, and he whistles softly.

“It’s already almost 3? God, it feels like reality got turned inside out. What the fuck?”

Shane bites his lip for a few seconds, wanting more than anything to say ‘Fuck it,’ and call into work for the next day, but knows that he can’t, and shouldn’t, and then lets out a soft breath.

“I should head home.” he tells Ryan gently. “I wish I could stay and talk about it more, but I have to be to work at 10.”

“Shit, of course- I didn’t know we were going to be here that long.” Ryan lets go of him and scrambles to get up from the couch and find his car keys. “I just need to go to the bathroom really quickly and then we can head out.”

“Okay,” Shane tries not to laugh at the sight of a sleepy, still-dazed Ryan trying to silently dash around his apartment.

He goes over to the entertainment center to look at Jake’s records. There are quite a few artists he hasn’t heard of lined up together, all with really interesting names, and a lot that he has and also enjoys. He’s carefully admiring the LP version of _Reflektor_ by Arcade Fire when the pictures sitting below the TV catch his eye. One frame has two pictures of just Ryan and Jake, each at their separate high school graduations where the graduate is standing still and being serious and the non-graduate has his arms thrown around his brother’s shoulders in excitement. Another picture is of Ryan, Jake, and Daysha, clearly on the day that they first moved into the apartment- Ryan is flailing around inside of a cardboard box, arms and legs sticking out of it, and Jake and Daysha are laughing hysterically next to him, holding onto each other. One of the pictures is of the whole Bergara family, where Ryan, Jake, and their parents are all in a giant group hug with Daysha at the center, and the picture is so endearing and sweet that it makes Shane grin. It’s clear that the Bergaras all love each other very much and also love Daysha the most.

When Ryan is done in the bathroom, they bundle up into their coats and boots and slowly make their way out into the cold early morning. It’s one of those nights where Shane doesn’t have to miss Illinois winters too much because California has finally gotten with the program in terms of low temperatures. Shane can even see his breath, and he watches it trail up into the starry sky as they half-stumble half-run to Ryan’s car.

“Fuck, I hate the cold,” Ryan stutters out, and cranks the heat up as high as it will go as soon as the doors are closed. “I don’t know how you handle this for months on end, and with _snow._ ”

He says the word the way someone else might say _dog shit_ , or _Mike Pence._

“I actually really enjoy the cold.” Shane admits, smiling. “Snow is my favorite thing, next to rain.”

Ryan looks absolutely horrified. “I bet you and your family are all fuckin’ lumberjacks or something. That’s the worst news I’ve ever been given.”

On the the ride home, eased by the dark and a feeling of total serenity, Shane attempts to explain why he loves winter so much. He starts off by saying that winter gives him an excuse to stay inside and read or watch movies all day, because no one wants to be out in the cold for long periods of time, but it isn’t enough to convince Ryan. So, he tries to explain the magic behind the first snow and the way the world looks when crystalized by ice and a fresh, snowy morning.

“It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t grow up with snow,” Shane sighs, but it’s more of a nostalgic sigh than one of frustration. “My brother and I spent hours playing in it, building snowmen and forts and having snowball fights with our friends. Every year, we’d have this giant neighborhood-wide snowball fight on Christmas Eve to wear ourselves out, and if we got lucky, we’d get to fall asleep watching the snow come down. I don’t know- it just makes everything cozier and pretty and Christmas-y.”

“I think it just makes you insane, but okay.”

“At least I’ll be prepared when the zombie apocalypse happens and everyone heads for Michigan because of the resources and the treacherous winters. You’d die in a week.”

“Kind of like the Lost Colony of Roanoke.”

Shane opens and shuts his mouth a few times, but finally settles on: “You can go fuck yourself. That was a _joke_.”

Ryan is laughing when they pull into Shane’s complex, and he gets the door open before the car has even stopped moving. “Let me out of this fucking car.”

“Oh my God, stop,” Ryan wheezes cutely, and Shane shuts the door, laughing along with him. “You’re so twitchy about supernatural stuff. Let me have my fun. I don’t go diving through windows whenever we’re at the library and you try to convince me that ghosts aren’t real.”

Shane smiles, feeling tired and satisfied. “I do gotta go, though, so you can get home and I can psych myself up for this shift alone with Keith. I’m going to need all the energy I can get.”

“Maybe I’ll come visit tomorrow your entire shift and you can just sleep under the table again.”

The memory of Ryan running a hand through his hair and giving him that liquidy, sweet look makes Shane’s mouth tingle, like it’s going to burn up if he doesn’t put it on Ryan’s in the next five seconds. He reaches for the door handle and prays that it won’t snap off.

“Nah, sleep in- you deserve it, Long Island Medium.”

Shane hops out in time to avoid Ryan’s jabbing fingers, and he laughs as quietly as he can manage. “Night, Ry. Thanks for inviting me over tonight.”

Ryan shrugs like it also wasn’t one of the best nights ever, and smiles with all his teeth. Shane can see the happiness radiating off of him even in the dark. “Thanks for letting me cling onto you like an octopus. I needed that to make it through, honestly.”

“Because of the gore and the creepy crawlies?”

A beat, and then Ryan gives him a look that is a little more flirty than friendly. “No. Good night, Shane.”

Since it’s ass o’clock in the morning and Shane thinks it would be indecent to initiate a makeout session in the parking lot of his apartment complex, he just gives Ryan a lame little wave and shuts the car door for real. Ryan, in a perfect imitation of Jake, blows Shane a kiss through the windshield and Shane can _see_ him cackling before he turns and scurries up to his building. Like always, Ryan waits until he’s inside to drive away, and Shane takes a few seconds in the hallway to _get a grip on himself._

When he makes it up to his apartment, Sara is asleep, and Shane is thankful that he doesn’t have to face her open, curious face or else he’d be up for hours crying about Ryan’s beautiful face and his bowling ball muscles and his tropical shampoo. Like a loser.

Instead, he does all of this in the comfort of his own bed. For a very, very long time. But even after two hours slide by, and Shane’s heart is finally starting calm down enough for him to go to sleep, he can’t forget the feeling of Ryan’s forehead smushed against his chest and the way Ryan had flinched farther into his arms during every jumpscare. He falls asleep wondering what would have happened if he’d yanked some courage out of his ass and just pulled Ryan into his lap like he’d been desperate to.

At work the next morning, Shane is running on a spectacular four hours of sleep, and even though he knows he wants to, Keith doesn’t say anything about it.

After an hour goes by and Shane gets stuck in a loop of trying to remember how to print labels out and ranking different fruit scents based on how strong they are in Ryan’s smell, he ends up saying something first.

“Hey.”

Keith looks up from his stack of returns, a little surprised. “Yeah?”

“Do you think Ryan smells more peach-y or more apple-y?”

There’s a pause. Keith looks at him like Shane just grew another head. Shane blinks at him slowly.

“I can’t say that I’ve ever been close enough to Ryan to, uh, smell him.”

Shane nods.

“Why are you asking?” Keith implores, almost cautious.

“I cuddled with him for eight hours last night while watching _American Horror Story: Roanoke_ with him and his brother and his best friend and I can’t stop thinking about how good he smells. Like oranges and pineapple and peaches and apples and mango, but I don’t know if it’s more peach than apple or more apple than peach.”

Keith stares at him.

Shane’s eye twitches as the seconds stretch on, and he tells his friend a little desperately: “I cuddled with him for a whole third of a day and didn’t kiss him and then thought about cuddling with him as I fell asleep and then dreamt about cuddling with him some more and here I am, four shitty hours of sleep later.”

Keith stares at him.

“I’m in love with that stupid, tiny man.” Shane whispers, and then buries his face into his hands. “Keith, he smells like an orangey pina colada. I love pina coladas. And oranges.”

Keith stares at him, and then his mouth falls open. “Holy shit.”

**_~.~.~_ **

The universe decides to give back to Shane this time around and Keith doesn’t bringing up the weird, sleep-deprived conversation they had. He just makes sure that Shane is okay Monday afternoon when they’re working again, and then lets it go. Maybe it’s because of Sara, and maybe it’s because Shane almost started sobbing at his desk about Ryan’s bicep muscles and his goddamn cologne, but for once, Keith chooses to support instead of tease.

Their _Star Wars_ marathon is a success, and goes much better than their _Roanoke_ marathon. Jake and Daysha join them when they can, and they all get together to watch _Rogue One_ since it’s in everyone’s top three. Shane is a little dizzy from all of the time he gets to spend with Ryan, and a lot happy with the amount of time he gets to spend with Jake and Daysha (who are two of the coolest people he’s ever met), and it feels like everything is finally coming together the way Shane has been waiting and wishing for for weeks.

So he’s only a little surprised when, during some random shift, Ryan finally asks him to go to a haunted location with him. He’s sorting through returns on the book cart, very clearly standing next to Ryan’s table and talking to him, when Ryan stumbles upon something that makes him gasp loudly.

“What is it?” Shane asks, pretty unenthusiastically. He feels like it’s going to be another piece of evidence confirming that the Whaley house is haunted, or maybe Eastern State, and he already feels himself pre-rejecting it.

“Holy fuck!” Ryan whisper-shouts. “Dude, the Sarah Winchester house is having a sale this weekend!”

“What?”

“The Sarah Winchester Mystery House! You know, that giant mansion up in San Jose? It has like one hundred and sixty rooms in it and if you buy tickets, you can go on a tour through it.” Ryan looks like he could fly from excitement. “This weekend, you can get four tickets for just $100.”

He stares at his computer screen for a second, and then when Shane is least expecting it, turns to give him the full puppy dog eyes. The look is complete with Ryan’s clasped, begging hands and his wobbling bottom lip, and Shane thinks it’s wholly unnecessary since he’d give Ryan the fucking pants off of his dumb tree legs if he asked.

“Will you go with me? We can get Daysha and Jake to come with us, or Steven and Andrew or something. Please, please, please?”

“Ryan,” Shane laughs, so he won’t say something completely embarrassing. “Sure, I’ll go with you. Calm down, man, you’re gonna make kids cry.”

Ryan grins at him, bright and beautiful in a way that still manages to take Shane’s breath away, and then, because he’s completely insane, takes the hand of Shane’s that closest to him and kiss the back of it.

“I owe you my life,” Ryan tells him seriously, and then promptly turns away to fill out the ticket form. Shane’s head is spinning, and there’s suddenly a giant, goofy grin on his face that he can’t force away, and he makes himself walk off before Ryan notices.

Throughout the rest of his shift, Ryan texts Jake and Daysha and fucks around on his laptop to pile up a bunch of facts about the house and its supposed haunting, and Shane tries to stay busy so he won’t march over to Ryan’s table and ask if they can kiss each other on the lips like a couple of middle schoolers.

At one point during his shift, while Shane is still floaty and stupid, Quinta finds him beaming down at some dull Law book.

“What the fuck happened to make you all smiley like that, Madej?” she asks.

Shane laughs, high and thin. “I’m going on a ghosty date with Ryan this weekend. And with his brother and best friend. He kissed my hand. Did you know he smells like an orangey pina colada?”

Quinta gives him a look that is identical to Keith’s from Sunday. “Christ, I think he broke you.”

Shane lets go of the Law book and, without warning, grabs onto Quinta’s shoulders. “I’m going to try and kiss Ryan Bergara inside of a haunted house. _What has this world come to?_ ”

Quinta stares up in shock for a few breaths, and then gently pulls Shane’s hands off of her shoulders and uses them to lead him towards the basement. “I don’t usually condone this, but- let’s go get you a coffee, Shane.”

“Thank you,” Shane chokes out, and tries to erase the image of him kissing Ryan in the middle of some nasty, dilapidated mansion. Obviously, he fails remarkably.

When they walk by the help desk, Sara pauses from whatever she’s doing to gawk at them.

“Is he okay?”

Quinta makes a face. “I don’t know- I’m getting him a coffee to see if that does the trick. I caught him making goo goo eyes at some book on the Bar Exam.”

Without another word, Sara digs into her backpack and pulls out her wallet. “Get him a bagel, too. I think he might be spiralling.”

“I wonder if he tastes like an orangey pina colada,” Shane muses, stuck completely in a trance of Ryan’s lips and his fruity, warm skin. “Do you think it’s possible for someone to taste like a Dreamsicle and a pina colada at the same time?”

Sara blinks, and fishes out another couple of dollars. “Make it two bagels.”

Unfortunately for everyone, Keith comes back before Quinta is able to coax Shane down into the basement, but also fortunately, keeps up his streak of being a concerned friend.

“Is he still having a breakdown?” Keith asks the girls, voice hushed. “He came in on Sunday and started muttering about Ryan smelling like tropical mixed drinks for, like, thirty minutes straight.”

“There’s still time to save yourself,” Shane informs him, stumbling as Quinta begins to navigate them towards the basement stairs. “Once you know what Becky’s mouth is going to taste like, there’s no going back, pal.”

Keith’s face instantly turns bright, fire truck red, and Sara lets her head thunk down onto the desk.

“Why am I surrounded by panicked gays? _Why?_ Where is Jen when you need her?”

Shane wails in response and lets Quinta take him downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry not sorry that i made jake the exact same person as i did in _i’m lost without your love _but i love that ryan and jake are like a couple of stereotypical brothers who both love and hate each other. also i have 0 idea of what jake’s middle name is and i literally googled common names and thought it would be funny if shane and jake had the same middle name because life’s funny like that sometimes. jake is a music production major bc i have a friend named jake who is into making music and jake bergara seems like he could be a cool artsy music kid so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ i got highkey nostalgic writing about american horror story so i’m probably gonna spend the day rewatching coven since that’s my favorite season (i bet u couldn’t tell) so i hope that this chapter was fun to read (since i'm still not that happy w it) and that yall are excited for the last one like i am fjdasfdsaa__


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the boyz go to the sarah winchester mystery house and then they go to hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it yall. This is the last chapter of "show me what i'm looking for" and even though I'm sad to be done with this universe, I'm so pleased with how this fic turned out and I'm so happy to have completed a chaptered fic for the first time in literal years. I loved testing the BFU waters with this AU and writing for these characters so much. Thank you to everyone who has read this from beginning to finish and left me wonderful comments and a kudos or even just read this and thought "that was kinda cool!" because every single bit of love and support means the world to me. I'm so happy to be able to share the magic of writing and reading with you guys and, of course, the magic of Shyan's fool asses. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you guys so much :") I'm sorry this took longer than I wanted to, but I also wanted to make sure I made it as best as I could for yall and didn't want it to feel rushed in between all my life events.
> 
> A quick disclaimer before we start: I haven’t actually visited the Sarah Winchester Mystery House & I’m not sure how exactly the tour works, so I’m sorry if you’ve been at all and the procedure isn’t the same. I’m just here trying my best to execute a Ghouligans date. And since I’ve never been, I’m not 100% sure what kinds of rooms are in the house, so I kind of took what I could get online and from the boys’ trip, and put it all together ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Sorry if the bits of them in the house aren’t super coolio but I am just trYING MY BEST also Sarah Winchester died on my birthday ohohohowohwohwo spooky 
> 
> I also want to say that I know I was iffy on the rating for this fic, but as of now, this fic has been bumped up to a mature rating for ~activities~ that occur towards the end of this chapter. It's nothing super explicit, but please feel free to skip past it if you're not into it!! There's quite a bit of fluff that still happens after the event, I promise!! 
> 
> And, as mentioned, I made a small playlist of songs I loved to listen to when writing this fic and here is it for anyone who would like it listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/user/ladalecki/playlist/39OAOb2jWIpbEkajdKaCzW?si=NcQTxYysRCGX9vuepa3Ggg
> 
> Alright gang, let's get this show on the road!! Time for spooky scaries and accidental smut lmfao also sorry this is 17k i just kinda visited the outer rim while writing it if u know wat i mean

When it’s all said and done, Shane ends up going through five different outfits before recruiting Sara to help him out.

“I don’t know why you’re so freaked about picking out an outfit,” she says through the jungle of his closet. “You own the same flannels in about fifty different colors and jeans and a few jackets. Not a lot of room for error.”

“This is the night that I’m going to put my foot down and ask him out- sue me for not wanting to look like a gargoyle.”

“He’s already been in love with you for like, two months, and all you’ve been wearing is sweaters and jeans and flannels and your two jackets and your Dean Winchester boots and whatever else lumberjacks from Illinois wear even though California is definitely not Illinois.”

She emerges from his closet with a soft, light blue button down, a pair of jeans, and Shane’s trusty jean jacket. She also emerges with a look of exasperation on her cute face. “Shane, all he cares about is taking your clothes off, anyway.”

He chokes. “Wow. Thanks for that, Sara.”

“I’m just being honest.” She shoves the clothes at him, and since they don’t really care, he changes right in front of her while she stands with her hands on her hips. “Ryan wanted to peel you out of them the first time I saw you together all the way back in October. When you finally found out it was him reading through all of our books on Sasquatch? So you really don’t have anything to worry about. And also, you’ll be in a dark ass mansion for the next four hours, and Ryan’s going to be more concerned about looking for ghosts than seeing if your clothes match or whatever’s going on inside your head.”

Shane sighs and gets his jacket settled on his shoulders. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m just- I’m nervous, you know? I know that it’s not really a date since his brother and best friend will be there, along with a whole hoard of strangers, and I know that our feelings are…”

Sara’s fingers flex like she’s trying not to grab onto his torso and shake him. “They’re mutual, Shane. Your feelings are mutual. Do not make me say it again, so help me God.”

“I know our feelings are- mutual. But I just really like him, Sara. I don’t want to mess it up.”

She laughs a little and moves to help get his shirt straightened out. “Shane, I can promise you from the bottom of my gay little heart that no matter what clothes you do or do not wear, Ryan is still going to be absolutely crazy about you. You could wear a fucking hot dog suit or something and I bet he’d still be clamoring to go on a date with you.”

He grins stupidly. “Ryan loves hot dogs.”

“There you go then.”

Once Sara deems him put together, she advises him to style his hair the way he always does, encourages him to wear the super fancy cologne his mom bought him for special occasions, and then suggests that they watch reruns of Frasier to help calm him nerves. He doesn’t know when, why, or how he deserved to have Sara Rubin as a best friend, and tells her as much. She gives him her own dumb grin and tells him: “Save the cheese for your boyfriend.”

At around 5, Shane’s phone pings and a text from Ricky Goldsworth says:  _the boo crew is here for spooky times_

Shane laughs and shows Sara, who also laughs. “You two really are a match made in Heaven. Hurry up and go.”

After crushing Sara in a big, slightly scared hug, she says, “You’ll be fine! And if not, just call me and I’ll skedaddle up to San Jose to get you! Have fun, buddy!” and then Shane is hurrying down the stairs to the parking lot.

He’s surprised to find the passenger seat open, and when he gets into the car, he looks at where Jake and Daysha are hanging out in the back in shock.

“You’re letting me sit up front? Aren’t I, like, at the bottom of the VIP list?”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Quite the opposite, actually. You get to sit up front because Ryan lo-”

“Ryan knows you have long legs,” Daysha cuts in, sending Jake a very pointed look. “And we don’t want you to get leg cramps before walking through a giant house for a few hours.”

Shane, somehow, does a good job of playing off the way his stomach turns and goes off like a rocket, and smiles at them all sweetly. “Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.”

Jake looks like he wants to say something else, but when Daysha hits his foot with hers, he just sighs and gives Shane a sincere, sweet smile back. “No problem.”

He gets in fully and buckles up before letting himself look over at Ryan. Ryan looks unfairly good in jeans, a thin grey hoodie, and the light wash jean jacket he wears almost as much as Shane wears his, and Shane wants to kiss him so, so, so fucking badly. Especially when he sees that Ryan is already looking back at him with a beautiful, crooked smile and no small amount of fondness. Shane’s breath catches a little, but he clears his throat in an attempt to hide it.

“Hi.”

Ryan laughs. “Hi.”

“How long until Spooksville?”

“About an hour or so. Did you eat already? Gotta keep your strength up for the ghouls and the demons.”

Shane rolls his eyes playfully. “Yeah, because I bet they care so much about whether or not I had dinner when they’re dragging me to Hell with them. Yes, I already ate,  _Mom_.”

Ryan punches him lightly on the shoulder and pulls out of Shane’s apartment complex. The mood of the car is extremely comforting, with Jake and Daysha laughing in the back and easily drawing him and Ryan into the conversation, the heat on low, and some pretty indie music playing throughout the small car.

“I really like these songs,” Shane says, once there’s a small lull in Jake and Daysha teaming up to pick on Ryan. “Who is it?”

“Jake, who is this again?” Ryan asks, and then glances over at Shane. “Jake’s really good at picking mood music for road trips so I always let him pick but then I always forget who he picks.”

“They’re called Foreign Fields,” Jake tells Shane, leaning up and around the seat to talk to him. “I love them a lot- their instrumentation is to  _die_ for, and the lead singer’s voice is really smooth and quiet and fits the tone of their music perfectly. Good for studying, relaxing, and taking a road trip where there’ll be lots of chit chatting.”

Shane almost expects Ryan or Daysha to say something about this info dump Jake gives him, but instead of any wisecracks, Ryan smiles proudly out at the road and Daysha just nods, adding in her bit of: “I’ve listened to them a little bit with Jake. I love the song “Mountaintop”, it’s really pretty!” It warms him heart a lot, knowing that Ryan and Daysha are only supportive of Jake and his intense interest in music, and he smiles softly at the freshman.

“They sound really good. I’ll check them out more after tonight.”

The way that Jake lights up makes it seem like Shane just handed him a million dollars in cash, and Shane didn’t even know he could be more endeared by a Bergara that isn’t Ryan, and yet. His heart swells up at the pleased and excited look on Jake’s face.

“You won’t be disappointed! If you really like this stuff, I could always make you a playlist of other songs and artists that have similar sounds to them. If you want.”

“I’m always in the market for new music, so make me as many playlists as you want.”

Jake tells him: “I’m on it,” and then proceeds to literally pull out his phone, open Spotify, and starts constructing a playlist for Shane while they’re all still talking to each other. Shane laughs and feels a penchant for Ryan Bergara’s little brother kicking up strongly within him. He catches Ryan’s eye when he glances over again, and the way his crooked smile deepens says everything he’s not allowed to say with Jake still in the car.

In between Jake making Shane a playlist and Ryan having him navigate a little, they all talk about their trip to the Mystery House and what they can’t wait or hope to see.

“I don’t really know what’s inside, because I wanted to keep most of it a surprise, but I can’t wait to see how decrepit and nasty the basement is.” Daysha comments.

Ryan shudders with his entire body at the suggestion of the basement. “I’m gonna cry when we go down there. Apparently, there’s an apparition of an old caretaker named Clyde that people see all the time down there, pushing his little wheelbarrow around or what the fuck ever. If I see a ghost tonight I’m going to become one, probably.”

“After you make sure to let Shane know that you were right the entire time and he sucks. Then you can die.”

“Exactly,” Ryan laughs at Daysha, and Shane laughs, as well, imagining Ryan’s dying words being: “I was right, asshole.”

“I can’t wait to go into the seance room and watch Ryan shit himself every time something creaks or someone breathes too loudly.”

“Fuck you, Jake. I don’t jump at  _every_ single thing.”

“Ryan, you jumped when we were in the library and you showed me footage of that fucking toothpaste falling off of the counter. That you’ve seen ten thousand times.”

Ryan scowls at them both. “You two are both uninvited. Get out of my fucking car. See who’s shitting their pants when I fling you out into the ditch in the middle of Los Angeles.”

They all laugh together, Jake hitting Ryan the way Ryan always hits people on the shoulder, and Shane feels a real burst of excitement at the thought of going to the Sarah Winchester Mystery House, knowing that Ryan and Jake are going to be acting up the whole time and Jake will probably plot with him to freak Ryan out. He thinks to himself that he’s pretty fucking lucky to be apart of this weird little trio who love each other maybe more than Shane loves Ryan.

“I hope Shane turns into a ghost so that he can haunt Ryan and himself at the same time.”

“I would prefer it if Shane didn’t die,” Ryan says loudly, and Shane sees his hands flexing against the steering wheel. It sends a lick of warmth up his spine that’s absolutely not from the heater. 

He’s real fucking lucky.

**_~.~.~_ **

When they arrive at the mansion and park, Jake pulls them all into a small huddle.

“Okay, so here’s the game plan: we’re gonna go through this tour and stick together, and I know Ryan brought some holy water with him in a little tiny squirt gun he has hidden in his hoodie, so if we get into some real trouble, we know where to go. Just in case Ryan starts crying hysterically or starts saying that Clyde is trying to put him in his wheelbarrow, the safe word is going to be ‘tractor’.”

“You fucking punk,” Ryan takes a swipe at Jake’s hat, but Jake dances out of reach, laughing, and starts off towards the sidewalk that leads to the mansion. Daysha flounces after him, telling Ryan to hurry his ass up, and Ryan makes a noise of despair. “This is going to be a long night.”

“Well, better them than Steven or Andrew, or else we would have to deal with Steven and Andrew trying to square up with ghosts and possibly the tour guide the entire time.”

Ryan giggles. “You’re right. I guess I can let it slide, if only for the justice of not listening to Steven calculate how much each scare is worth. Fucking Accounting majors, man.”

They head towards the mansion after Jake and Daysha, who are bouncing along together and talking (loudly) about what they can do to scare Ryan once on the tour. They don’t even flinch when Ryan and Shane catch up to them and Ryan flicks Jake on the back of the neck, and Shane stifles another laugh at how well the three of them fit together even when Jake and Daysha are planning Ryan’s demise.

There’s a group bunched up together outside of the mansion that Shane can see through the entrance gate, and after Ryan hands the girl working at the gate all of their tickets, they head towards the cluster. There’s a sharp wind that picks up every now and again, cold enough to make everyone huddle together, and Shane thinks that it’s a pretty good mood setter in terms of unease and being able to stand closer to Ryan.

When 8 P.M. rolls around, their tour guide calls for attention, moving away from the front of the crowd where she’d been chatting with the tourists. All conversation dies down and everyone presses closer to her, excitement and fear rolling through the crowd.

Once all of their eyes are on her, she turns on a little headset and speaker and smiles at them.

“Alright, folks, it’s time to head into the Sarah Winchester Mystery House for the tour! Since this weekend included the special package for the regular mansion tour and the Explore More tour, there are more people than usual here, so I’m going to need you all to follow the rules so no one gets lost or hurt. Of course, #1 is: stick with the group. Do not wander outside of the group and try to explore different areas of the house without us. Since this tour is going to cover all areas of the house, there’s no need to wander off! I know some people might want alone time with some of the ghosts in the mansion, but they’re just as likely to show up with or without the group- trust me, I’ve been doing this for years, and they show up no matter what.”

“She’s seen them?” Daysha whispers, grinning. “That’s so cool. I wonder if she’s seen Sarah Winchester at all.”  

Ryan scoots closer to Shane.

“#2: You don’t have to say if this is you or not, but like I said, I’ve been doing this gig for a while. I know that some of you are here because you think this is a really cool experience, and some of you are here because you had no other choice.” A round of chuckles goes through the crowd, and a few people even raise their hands to make their friends and family laugh more. “The mansion is frightening, to be frank with you. We might see some spirits, and we might not. There is going to be a security guard with us during the tour named Tim, and he’ll be at the back of the line. If you need to leave the mansion at all during the tour or be taken down to the foyer for some air, just locate Tim and ask him to take you out. There will be no refunds for your tickets if you don’t complete the tour, unfortunately, but we’ll make sure you’re helped and taken care of.”

A guy with a SECURITY hat, a flashlight, and one of those old men cell phone belt holsters waves his hand from the side of the crowd, and tells them: “Don’t be afraid to holler if you need me. I’ll make sure none of the ghosties grab ya.”

“I would trust him with my life,” Ryan whispers, and Shane chokes back a laugh. “Cell phone holster and all.”

“#3: No videos or pictures, please. I know you all want to take a video to remember all the rooms and show your friends, but unfortunately, taking footage of the tour is prohibited and if you’re caught doing it, Tim will have to escort you out. And, lastly, #4: Please don’t purposely disrupt the tour to scare your friends.”

“Shit,” Jake curses, and Ryan chops him in the back of the neck with a hissed: “Take that, bitch.”

“I know that some of you are skeptical of ghosts and love to pick on your friends if they believe in the paranormal-”

“Hey!” Shane gives Ryan a discreet pair of jazz hands and Ryan tries and fails to hide a smile.

“-but this combined tour is going to take three and a half hours to get through, and we need to get through it with as little commotion as possible that doesn’t come from the spirits themselves. Are we all set?”

The crowd gives a chorus of approval, and the tour guide starts to lead them up to the mansion, already starting to explain some of the history of how the mansion was built and in what order. Jake and Daysha walk ahead of them again, pointing out some parts of the mansion as they get closer to it, and Shane tries to take in the sheer size of it while also absorbing the information the tour guide is giving them on the architectural design. While they’re walking, Tim the security guy starts to work his way through the crowd and hands some people flashlights to hold for the duration of tour, until about a third of them are holding flashlights. Daysha gets one, but when she offers it to Ryan, he shakes his head and says he trusts her to keep him safe and it makes Shane smile.

When they get to the door, the tour guide goes in first, and the rest of them form a small line to enter the front door in smaller groups. When Jake and Daysha are close enough to get up onto the small porch, Shane feels something touch his elbow, and he looks down.

Ryan’s hand is resting on his arm and he’s looking up at Shane the same way he looked at him during  _American Horror Story_ , eyes all wide and scared and his bottom lip trapped under his teeth. He looks absolutely fucking adorable and it sets off a round of fireworks in Shane’s stomach.

“Is it okay if I hold onto you during the tour?” he asks, sounding vulnerable for the first time that night. “I know nothing will probably happen, since we’re with a crowd of people, but I’m- I’m still kinda freaked out.”

Any thought or idea of teasing Ryan about it flies out of the window immediately, and instead, Shane smiles kindly at him. “Of course, Ryan. I don’t mind.”

“Thanks, big guy.”

Ryan curls his hand completely around Shane’s arm, where his bicep meets the hinge of his elbow, and even through two thick layers he can feel the burn of Ryan’s fingers, can feel his touch like flames. He lets Ryan get as close as he needs to, and tries to pay attention to the inside of the mansion as they enter it instead of how much he wants to get on one knee and ask for Ryan’s hand in marriage. He has to force himself to take in the foyer of the house, the cracked, painting-filled walls, the beautiful design of the flooring, the ancient pottery, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to spend the entire night thinking about how he can smell Ryan’s cologne over the smell of dust and occasionally feel Ryan’s cheek press against his shoulder because he’s standing so close.

When everyone is inside of the mansion, the tour guide lowers the volume on her mic set, and gestures around the room.

“Welcome to the Sarah Winchester Mystery House, everyone. As you can see, we’re standing in the entryway of Sarah Winchester’s great mansion- and you if you think the foyer is spooky, just wait until we move onto the other rooms! We’re going to begin with the first floor and visit what we can down here, then we’ll move to the upstairs, and then work our way down into the basement to finish the tour up. Best for last!”

Shane feels it when Ryan shivers at the mention of the basement, and hides his silly grin in the collar of his jacket. They follow along with the tour guide as she begins to tell the story of Sarah Winchester’s tragic and supernaturally-charged life, looking around the foyer and then moving on with her as she leaves and enters a parlor of sorts. As they wind their way through the first floor, from the entryway to the parlor to one of the two ballrooms to a few guest bedrooms to a kitchen, the tour guide talks about Sarah’s ill-fated family and the evil spirits that cursed them through the Winchester Rifle Company. Shane figures out a way to balance his interest in the history behind Sarah Winchester’s house and his interest in the feeling of Ryan Bergara being almost completely curled around him.

It’s only when they reach this cool room called the Hall of Fires- a giant corridor filled with fire places- that Jake and Daysha even realize that Ryan is clinging onto Shane like a five year old. Once the group reaches the Hall of Fires and the tour guide is telling them about Sarah’s bad arthritis, an eerie howling noise pierces the quiet and calm mood of the group. Several tourists gasp, swear, or yelp, and Shane laughs as silently as he can manage when he hears Ryan whimper and press into his side.

Jake turns around to make some wisecrack remark towards his brother, but Shane watches as the insult forms and dies on his mouth when he sees Ryan holding onto Shane like a couple taking a stroll through the park.

“I can’t tell if you’re actually scared or hamming it up to get some action,” Jake whispers to Ryan, and has to jump next to Daysha to avoid Ryan’s swift kick to his ass.

“Fuck off, dude- I don’t even care about that right now. I’m trying to get out of here alive.”

“Jesus,” Jake laughs, and then he flashes Shane a  _very subtle_ thumbs up before turning back around. So subtle that Ryan sighs and mutters a: “Bitch,” under his breath.

Their tour guide is trying to get everyone to calm down, but Shane can see the amusement on her face and thinks that maybe that’s why she’s been doing this for years on end. “Okay everyone, let’s group up again- that wasn’t a ghost, my friends, that was just some wind. The mansion has forty seven fireplaces in total, and so when a large gust of wind passes over, it creates a really harrowing sound. Relax- the ghosts are waiting for us in a different section of the house.”

Ryan’s hold on his arm tightens even more as they make their way through the Hall of Fires and back towards the main hall, where the grand staircase sits.  

“Alright, everybody- we’re going to continue on with the next part of our tour, and take a trip up to the second floor. Now, I have to warn you- some parts of the upstairs are even more weird and difficult to navigate than the rooms on the first floor, so please be careful and stick to the group.”

They all follow the tour guide up the stairs, taking in the hallway at the top of the stairs and the grand chandelier that was positioned perfectly above the room below them. When someone points a flashlight over the chandelier to get a better look at it, the crystals hanging off of the end of it cast pinpricks of light over the railing and the paintings on the walls. It makes it look like the people inside of the paintings are flickering in and out of sight, or makes it look like their eyes are following the group’s movement. Ryan has pretty much become another limb of Shane’s at this point because of how close he’s standing next to him, and Shane really can’t sink into the creepy atmosphere of the mansion with the smell of oranges and the hot press of Ryan’s fingers against his arm making him feel like he’s walking on air.

Their tour guide continues on with other information about Sarah Winchester and her mansion as they make their way through the rooms on the second floor. They pass through more bedrooms, a few bathrooms, a library, a billiards room, the second ballroom, a room that Sarah used to create and store her construction blueprints, and some random room that their tour guide says Sarah probably just used to nap in or store clothing. The minutes slip by as they take a literal walk through history, and even though Shane is painfully aware of Ryan’s proximity to him, time melts easily into the background, and he doesn’t even realize they’ve been doing this for almost an hour and a half until someone checks their phone and he sees what time it is.

They get to see a few wacky additions to the house: a sharp, narrow hallway that leads to the same hallway that they’re all standing in, a door that opens into a brick wall, and another door that opens to the outside and results in a two story drop into the garden below. Jake makes some joke about Ryan being able to use it if a ghost tries to possess him and Ryan is so freaked out that all he can make himself do is scowl at Jake.

After roaming around more than half of the upstairs they finally make it to the infamous seance room, and when they enter it, Ryan whines, quiet enough that the only person who hears him is Shane.

“Are you okay, Ryan?” he asks softly, trying not to alert the others in the group.

Ryan nods, but Shane doesn’t believe him for a second. “The room just feels…  _weird_. I don’t know if it’s because a lot of paranormal energy is here in general or if it’s because that energy is bad.”

Shane wants to curl his arm around the tense line of Ryan’s shoulders, but he doesn’t, knowing that it would disrupt the hold Ryan has on him. Even though he thinks ghosts are nonsense and there’s nothing paranormal in the room with them, bad or otherwise, he doesn’t like the caged look in Ryan’s eyes or the hard, downturn of his mouth.

“This was the room that Sarah Winchester used for- you guessed it- seances. This is where she would come to contact the good spirits on a nightly basis in order to receive guidance in her building process. This is one of the most spiritually active rooms in the house, and many guests and myself have reported seeing apparitions in here, or feeling a presence of some sorts. Rest assured, folks- I’ve never had a negative experience in this room, since Sarah communicated with the benevolent ghosts that helped her to build her house and keep her away from the evil spirits.”

This makes Shane turn back to Ryan and give him a small, reassuring smile. “See? Only good ghosties here.”

Ryan makes a low noise, not of acceptance or rejection, and then presses his face into Shane’s shoulder, kind of like a child hiding from strangers. It makes his stomach and heart do something dumb.

“People have reported hearing organ music while up here, and sometimes also feel cold spots or some dizziness. As you can see, there are three entrances into the seance room, but one of the doors is actually a trapdoor that drops down into the kitchen- another way for Sarah to try and confuse any bad spirits that lurked in this room while she was communicating with the good spirits.”

They all take turns creeping closer to get a good look at the trap door, and then face their tour guide where she’s standing by a small closet-looking fixture in the corner of the room. She smiles at them, suddenly, and even though she’s been nothing but sweet on the entire tour, something in the gleam of her teeth and the way her eyes slit makes Shane feel uneasy.

“Would anyone like to try stepping into the cupboard for a little bit? Sarah would often lure bad spirits into here so that her communication with the good spirits could take place without any interruptions.”

A handful of people eagerly volunteer, along with some people who look reluctant but are forced to go in with whoever they came with, and they all anxiously wait to see if anything will happen. No one comes out and reports anything, but one lady claims that she felt cold a few moments after the door was shut behind her and one of her group partners.

“Anyone else?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then-

“I think my brother would _love_ to go inside for a few minutes.”

“Jake!” Ryan hisses, trying to hide from sight even more. “Fuck you, dude, I absolutely do not.”

“C’mon, Ry,” he grins back at his brother, and reaches out to pull on Ryan’s left arm. “We came all this way to see some ghosts! It’ll be like 7 Minutes in Heaven but with a spirit. That’s probably a wet dream of yours or something.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Their tour guide doesn’t seem to hear the words being exchanged between the brothers, but still encourages Ryan to come forward, despite his clear fear of doing so.

“It’s really quite a fun addition to the tour if you’re a real paranormal enthusiast! You’re only in there for a few minutes and we can always pull you out early if it gets to be too much!”

Even Shane fidgets under the stare of their other tour group mates, who are all looking at Ryan expectantly. He squirms against Shane for a few breaths, as if trying to decide whether to tap out now or suck it up, and he eventually sighs, giving his brother a pissed look.

“Sure. I guess I’ll come try it out.”

The tour guide’s smile widens, almost wolfish, and before he even knows what he’s doing, Shane’s taking a step forwards with Ryan, who was starting to let go of his hold on Shane’s arm.

“I’ll come with you, if you want.”

Ryan looks back at him in surprise, and then nods quickly, re-looping his hand through Shane’s arm. “Please.”

They make their way up to the front of the group where the little closet juts out of the wall, and the tour guide steps aside to let them in. Even though Ryan is a whole head and some change shorter than Shane, they’re both big people, and the squeeze is a tight one. They end up pressed from knee to chest inside of the small, dark room, and when the tour guide shuts the door behind them and casts the room in blackness, the sensation of being buried alive only increases.

“This is really shitty,” Ryan whispers to him, so quietly that there’s no way anyone outside can hear him. “I’m going to kill Jake.”

“This is probably the house to do it in.” Shane quips back, trying to help ease the tension that is clearly in every single crevice of Ryan’s body. He reaches up with the arm that Ryan doesn’t have a death grip on and uses it to find his shoulder, giving it a small, warm squeeze. “You’re doing great, though. I’m sure once we’re out of here, you’ll be glad that you did this.”

“Yeah, I’ll be delighted at the memory of being scared shitless and being crammed into a tiny closet with you.” Ryan exhales sharply, and after a moment of silence, moves until his forehead is pressed into Shane’s sternum. “I mean, being with you is fantastic, but being with you in a dark, haunted cupboard? Not at the top of my favorite experiences list.”

“Um,” Shane says, because his stupid, gay brain is broken again, and he doesn’t know what to say to Ryan or if he should just kiss him on his equally stupid, gay mouth, but the tour guide comes to the rescue.

“Okay, boys, that’s been three minutes. Time to move on!”

Shane feels most of the air rush back into his body once the door is opened again and he and Ryan spill out into the group again. Luckily, all of the flashlights are pointed at the ground when they exit the closet, so no one can really see how tightly Ryan and Shane are holding onto each other and how Shane looks like he was ready to kiss his friend within an inch of his life in some dead woman’s seance room.

“I’m surprised you didn’t cry,” Jake says once they’re at the back of the group again, and Ryan punches him in the arm as hard as he can.

“I’m going to get you the fuck back for that later. Sleep with one eye open tonight, Bergara.”

“The same could be said to you, Bergara.”

“Boys,” Daysha sighs, but smiles and follows after the moving group.

The brothers glare at each other before moving after her, Jake slinging an arm around her shoulders and Ryan holding onto Shane’s arm like a staircase railing. When they exit the room and start down another long, dark hallway, Ryan squeezes his arm and leans up by his ear and says:

“Can I…”

Shane glances down at him, but all he can really see are some of the flashlight beams glancing off of Ryan’s glasses and that Ryan is pursing his mouth.

“What’s up, little guy?”

Ryan stares up at him, hesitation clear on his cute, spooked face, and then he looks down at where his hand is clutching Shane’s arm. He stares and stares while they make their way down the hallway and then, without a word, moves the hand holding onto Shane’s arm down into Shane’s hand and then puts his other hand where the first one was. It ends with him being pressed even closer into Shane’s side, their ribs and hips brushing together every other step. He looks back up at Shane, lips pursed, and Shane almost trips over the rug running along the entirety of the ancient hallway. He instinctively slots their fingers together and feels his stomach flip flop at the feeling of Ryan’s soft, warm fingers curling around his own.

“Is this okay?”

Like Shane would ever fucking say no to him.

“Of course, Ry.”

Ryan smiles cutely at him, and then, without any regard for the crowd still around them or the fact that they’re walking towards more ghost rooms, stretches up on his tippy toes to press a quick kiss to Shane’s cheek.

“Thanks, Shane.”

He doesn’t wait for Shane to reply before pulling him closer to the group, seemingly ready to focus on the tour again, and Shane is a-okay with that since his brain feels like it was just put through a blender. His face is hot and probably pink where Ryan kissed it, and now he’s hyper aware of every part of their bodies that are touching, and if they weren’t around a bunch of randos and Ryan’s little brother and best friend, Shane would back him into the nearest wall and kiss him like he’s been wanting to for four long, tiresome months.

Instead of doing that, Shane dutifully follows the group farther into Sarah Winchester’s house. They go through another series of guest rooms, another library, something that looks like a study, a chapel, some bathrooms, and then finally, at the end of a series of dark, winding hallways, their tour guide takes them into Sarah Winchester’s bedroom.

“This is, of course, where Sarah herself is spotted most often by visitors.” she tells them, and waves over towards the grand bed sitting in the corner of the room. “And this is also where Sarah passed away in her sleep on September 5th of 1922. So, not only is she connected to this house because of her general spiritual activity, but because her own spirit still lingers here in the aftermath of her death.”

Shane tries not to snort out loud at the looks on everyone’s faces, and finds it easier than expected when Ryan gently squeezes his hand. He can tell that Ryan is stuck even more in between being horrified and being entranced since their stunt in the seance room, if the way his hold on Shane tightens while he also tries to get a closer look at the bed is anything to go by. Shane tries not to think about how utterly fucking endearing Ryan is.

“I’ve seen her apparition in here quite a few times during my years on this tour. It’s shocking every single time, but I must assure you that Sarah’s ghost is not scary or heartbroken or anything like that. Usually, when I see her ghost, she’s just preparing for bed or checking over some blueprints on the house that we kept in this room.”

The tour guide looks around the room for a moment, and then turns back to all of them with another one of her weird, almost grotesque expressions, like the one from the seance room. A chill goes throughout the crowd, and even though Shane thinks the tour guide is just playing it up for the sake of the tour, he scoots closer to Ryan on a protective instinct, and makes sure Jake and Daysha are in his line of vision.

“I did get a chance to talk to her, once, a few years back,” she says, at a much lower volume than before. Everyone sucks in a quiet breath. “During one of the tours, there was a huge disruption while we were inside of the seance room and a lot of people dropped their flashlights. A handful of people were unable to recover theirs or ran out of the room in fear, so I had to come back up here afterwards to grab them. Now, I’ve been doing this for countless years and spend nearly every single night giving tours around this mansion, and even though I’ve seen some spooky things, I’m not really scared of the mansion or anyone inside of it. But, when I went back to the seance room to grab those flashlights and saw Sarah Winchester sitting in the middle of the floor, I felt a little… freaked out.”

Ryan’s grip tightens considerably on Shane’s hand and he presses his cheek against Shane’s shoulder, staring at their tour guide with absolute and total wonderment. Shane swallows heavily and forces himself to pay attention to the story.

“I thought she would ignore me and then disappear after a few moments like she usually does when I stumble upon her, but instead, she turned and looked right up into my eyes. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then she asked me for some building advice. She asked if she should add in a music room on the second floor or if she should possibly make a chamber to catch and hold some of the evil spirits lurking around her mansion, and I just stared at her. Eventually, I managed to suggest that she build herself a sanctuary somewhere in the second floor to hide away from the evil spirits if they ever tried to come after her, and she nodded and thanked me before disappearing. And then, just last year, we discovered a previously boarded up room that we identified as an attic space, filled with dress-making equipment and a pump organ. I think that whenever we’re able to hear organ music in the seance room, that’s Sarah’s way of thanking me for reminding her of one of her safe places in this twisted mansion.”

Shane sucks his bottom lip into his mouth to keep himself from laughing. The story is obviously very fabricated and  _fictional_ , but every single other person in the room- barring the few other skeptics that were forced to come along by their friends or partners- looks at their tour guide like she’s Jesus or something. When she finishes her little tale, a few people gasp, and one woman even mumbles something about their tour guide being “damn gifted, that’s for sure, what an amazing experience.” Shane would be mad at someone spinning such a ridiculous story and trying to pass it off as something that really happened, but he thinks that the looks on everyone’s faces makes up for the foolassery.

They all stand together in silence and look at different corners of Sarah’s bedroom, clearly waiting to see if she will appear and either speak to them or just get into bed and sleep, but after a solid five minutes of them all staring at each other and the bed like a group of morons, the tour guide announces that they’re going to move onto the basement level of the mansion for the final part of the tour.

As they’re all trapezing down to the basement, a whole new mood of unease settling over the group, Jake tries to get another rise out of Ryan. At this point, Shane would be genuinely surprised if one of the Bergara brothers didn’t actually end up dead tonight, whether it be out of an anger-driven murder or cardiac arrest.

“We all remember what the safe word is?” Jake whispers to them; he glances down at where both of Ryan’s hands are still firmly wrapped around Shane, and then moves to link his arm through Daysha’s. She looks over at him, then back at Shane and Ryan, a stupid smile on her face. “We’re still good with ‘tractor’, right?”

“Jake, I will actually let Clyde shove you in his wheelbarrow and take you out back, if you know what I mean.”

“Christ, dude, you are  _wound up_. I don’t even know why you’re so fucking scared of ghosts anyways, Ry. They’re made of air and you’re one hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle. You could knock out King Kong.”

Ryan glares at his brother. “Ghosts don’t use physical force to mess with people. I can take on actual people if I need to, and have done so before- I’m sure you remember that Black Keys concert when someone tried to offer you crack cocaine?”

Jake winces. “You bet I do. I missed part of "Howlin’ For You" because you were breaking that dude’s teeth.”

This shouldn’t make Shane’s belly light up, the thought of Ryan kicking some dude’s ass for offering his brother drugs, but it weirdly does. He wonders if he needs Clyde to ‘take him out back’.  

“So we all agree that I can take care of myself. But these things aren’t made of skin and bone- they’re able to travel through dimensions and have been reported to possess people many, many times over hundreds of years. I can’t punch my way out of being possessed by some blood thirsty asshole.”

Daysha sucks her lips in like she’s trying not to smile again, and glances up at Shane. “I bet you’d try if one of them possessed Shane.”

Ryan’s hands flex dangerously against his hand and elbow, and Shane doesn’t know whether to kick Daysha in the shins or kiss her face for that splendid comment. He settles for flipping her off.

“Don’t worry, Shane.” Ryan tells him, so seriously that Shane’s heart fucking skips a beat and then melts down into his toes. “If Clyde tries to take you away, I’ll find a way to re-kill him. I’ve seen  _Supernatural_ \- I’ll salt his ass nine ways from Sunday.”

Jake and Daysha cackle as quietly as they can and turn away from them to talk to each other. Shane knows that they’re talking about him and Ryan, but really can’t be fucked to care. Ryan’s comment puts a giant grin on his face, and even as they’re coming up to a set of rickety, kind of grotesque-looking stairs that lead to the basement, Shane feels like he could fly. So, in a turn of events from Ryan initiating the intimacy, Shane carefully lifts their clasped hands and presses a soft, pointed kiss to the top of Ryan’s whitening knuckles. He hears Ryan take a sharp breath and meets his eyes in the splotchy lighting of the basement stairwell.

“Thanks, Ryan. If we see him down here, I’ll make sure he knows what the fuck is up.”

The look Ryan gives him is a new one; Shane has seen fondness, excitement, exasperation, tenderness, and even something coy all on Ryan’s beautiful, expressive face before. But he’s never seen this look before outside of the deep, dark fantasies Shane keeps hidden until it’s 1 A.M. and he can’t help himself. The look Ryan gives him, blurred by the flickering flashlight beams and majorly out of place in the middle of a fucking haunted mansion, can only be described as heated. Even in the dark, surrounded by a bunch of strangers and part of Ryan’s family, he can see that Ryan’s eyes have turned liquidy and can see the obvious hitch in his chest. It makes Shane’s mouth run dry.

He forces himself to turn away from it, tries to keep calm and tell himself  _you’re in public you’re in public you’re in public_ even if Ryan clearly isn’t following the same mindset, and thinks about standing in a musty, gross basement instead of getting on his knees. The way Ryan is looking at him confirms that Shane is allowed to do that now, and the power rush that comes with it almost knocks him over. He grips onto Ryan’s hand tightly, as if to try and convey  _you’re in public_ through their joined palms, and all Ryan does is let out a deep breath against his shoulder and press his thumb into Shane’s wrist where his pulse is going nuts.

When they reach the end of the stairs, Shane can’t even see how far the basement stretches out, despite all of the flashlights pointed around in different directions. It looks like a barren wasteland, and then, after miles and miles of nothing, there’s a maze of walls that lead somewhere else inside of the basement. If Shane believed in ghosts or demons, he’d be shitting himself, thinking about what might be lurking around the corners in the maze or waiting on the other side of it.

“This is one of the most active areas of the house,” their tour guide says, leading them across the dusty floor. “This is where a lot of the bad spirits were reported to linger once inside of the mansion, and Sarah built a lot of things into this room to try and trap them down here. One of Sarah’s caretakers named Clyde spent a lot of time down here as well, and his ghost is often seen cleaning up or pushing a wheelbarrow around.”

Jake turns to smirk at Ryan, and Shane barely makes out the sight of him mouthing the word ‘tractor’. Ryan mouths back something that looks suspiciously like ‘asshole’.

“Clyde is also the most frequently spotted apparition inside of the Sarah Winchester Mystery House, and like Sarah, is harmless. He occasionally talks to visitors, so if he waves to you or asks if you need anything fixed up in your room, just nod and be nice. To get out of the mansion, we’ll make our way through these little passages and exit out through the back garden and to the front of the house.”

It’s a tight squeeze, but once everyone forms a makeshift single file line, they’re able to start going through the maze. They all look around and admire some of the ancient potbelly stoves and workshop pieces sitting across the barren entrance of the basement, but at this point in the tour, they’ve been inside of the creepy mansion for just over three hours and everyone is anxious to get back outside. Shane gently maneuvers Ryan so that he’s in front of him and behind Jake, and Ryan reaches back and grabs onto Shane’s hands with both of his so that they’re still touching. Shane lets himself beam stupidly again, knowing that nobody can see him, and walks forwards carefully.

As they all wind their way through the walls in the basement, everyone gets more and more antsy, waiting to see if Clyde will be around one corner with his wheelbarrow, or if one of Sarah Winchester’s evil spirits is lurking the darkness, waiting to attack. A few titters go through the line of tourists like a ripple in a pond, and even Shane feels a strange pull of anticipation. He believes in ghosts just as much as he believes in the Easter Bunny, but his gut still clenches every time they go around a corner and someone’s flashlight catches the long, thinning alleyways at a weird angle.

At last,  _at last,_ they reach the end of the winding basement tunnels and Shane hears the tour guide open up the basement door. They all pile out one by one until the whole group is back outside in the dark, cold California air pushing into their clothes. Shane inhales deeply, feeling like his nose is full of the scent of dust and decaying furniture, and he breathes in at the same time that the wind picks up. It fills him with the smell of grass and of Ryan’s wonderful, fruity scent, and Shane leans closer to him, almost buries his nose in Ryan’s messy hair before he remembers that that’s a line they still need to cross.

As they pick their way through the garden, their tour guide starts to wrap up the tour. They all re-situation themselves amongst their groups and Ryan simply slides his hand into Shane’s as they walk towards the front door.

“Alright everyone, that concludes the tour of the Sarah Winchester Mystery House! Thank you all so much for coming out tonight and being an  _excellent_ tour group! Lots of reactions and good volunteers for the seance room!” She stops them all by the place they started, right in front of the looming mansion, and smiles. “If anyone has questions about the property or lingering spirits inside the mansion, I’ll be staying back for a little while to talk to you! And if anyone is interested in visiting the gift shop, just head back up towards the entrance gate and take a right! Thanks again for coming on the tour, and have a great rest of your night!”

They all disperse after that. A few people immediately approach the tour guide, looking alive and excited, and a few people immediately head off towards the entrance to get to the gift shop. Shane and Ryan turn towards Jake and Daysha, and they all look at each other.

“Anyone interested in the gift shop?” Jake asks. “We could pick up a ‘Clyde Wants You In His Wheelbarrow’ shirt for Ryan.”

“Never in a million years.” Ryan says, and then laughs because they’re no longer inside of the house. “Let’s head home, yeah? We can grab some food on the way home and go watch a movie or something.”

“Sounds good to me,” Daysha agrees, and then they all head towards the car. Ryan and Jake start up a running commentary on how cool and spooktacular the mansion was and how lucky they all were to be able to go at the discounted price. Shane and Daysha add in some pieces here and there, but the brothers do most of the talking, and Shane is perfectly fine watching them simultaneously gush about the tour together and punch each other in the arm when they get sassy. Shane catches Daysha’s eye and they silently laugh at them, and he feels a lot like he never wants this night to end.

And even after they get into the car and pull out onto the road, Jake’s soft Spotify playlist starting up automatically, Ryan calmly lets go of the steering wheel with one hand to hold Shane’s across the center console. He almost wants to be embarrassed by it, knowing that Jake and Daysha can Very Clearly See It from the backseat, but instead, it seems to soothe him, takes the edge off of being in an old, weirdass mansion for three and a half hours.

“You really can’t let go of him, huh, bro?” Jake giggles and reaches up to pat their joined hands. “All you needed was the excuse of being scared.”

Ryan says nothing for a few moments, and then he fucking  _smirks_ , and Shane’s throat tightens up dangerously.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Either way-” he looks over from the road for a split second and meets Shane’s eyes, because Shane is already looking back at hm. “-it’s a win for me.”

Shane stares at him, dumbfounded, and then he grins. He doesn’t try to suppress it, or hide it, knowing that he only has a small window to show Ryan just how onboard he is with this. He smiles with all his teeth and looks at Ryan like he hung the fucking moon in the sky, and holds his eyes until Ryan has to focus on the road again. He doesn’t miss the way Ryan squeezes his hand, or the way he bites down on his bottom lip to try and contain his own stupid smile.

“You two are freaks,” Jake sighs, but when Shane turns back to give him a faux-threatening look, Jake is smiling softly at them. His voice sounds extremely loving when he ends with: “Completely insufferable. I’m gonna throw up.”

“Remember to roll the window down.” Ryan says, and Jake just wrinkles his nose at Shane. Shane smiles widely at him and then turns back around to face the road.

He gently runs his thumb over Ryan’s, sinks down into his seat, and tries not to count the miles until he can get Ryan alone.  

_**~.~.~** _

They hold hands all the way up until they stop for food. It’s nothing spectacular, just some early A.M. McDonald’s, but they all whoop and cheer like they’re ordering from a five star restaurant. The only reason Ryan lets go of his hand is because Shane has to be in charge of holding all of their drinks, and Shane is strangely okay with it.

Mostly because they’re almost home, and Shane’s heart is starting to race because it means that they’re almost back in the sanctuary of the Bergara/Edewi household where he is somehow and in someway going to kiss the boy he’s absolutely fucking gone for. His heart rate is skyrocketing the closer they get, and if Ryan was still holding his hand, he’d be able to tell for sure, either because of his hammering pulse or his sweaty palms.

“What should we watch?” Jake asks, after they arrive and trek up to the second floor.

Shane cheekily suggests: “ _AHS: Roanoke_?” and Daysha almost throws his Dr. Pepper at him.

“Not in a million fuckin’ years, Madej. You ever mention that season in my house again and I’ll fling you off of our balcony.”

Shane looks to Ryan for backup, but Ryan is just silently nodding his head in agreement.

“You heard her, dude. Talk shit, get hit.”

“Christ, okay. My bad.”

They end up watching  _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone_ because it’s a fan favorite and light compared to the evening, and everyone settles down to watch it with their food. Jake and Daysha end up on the left and right legs of the count, and Shane and Ryan take the center one, backs against each side of the couch and feet pressed together in the center where they meet. Even though Shane feels like his stomach is tossing and turning and might fall out of his ass at any given moment, watching an old favorite movie and eating something helps to calm him down. As the movie progresses and everything settles down, he feels anticipation more than anything.

Jake is the first one to surrender. His head starts to dip down around the part where Harry learns how to ride a broom for the first time and almost gets his ass kicked by McGonagall. Shane watches in amusement as Jake nearly faceplants into the coffee table and then jerks upright again.

He stretches out and clumsily gets to his feet. “Alright, it’s my time to go.”

“Wimp,” Ryan says without heat. “G’night, Jakey.”

“Night, loser. Thanks again for the ghost adventure.” Jake shuffles into the kitchen to throw his trash away and then slinks down to his bedroom.

It takes another thirty minutes for Daysha to admit defeat. She puts up a good fight, eating her food slowly and trying to keep up with the movie, but once Christmas happens and Harry pulls Ron along to the Mirror of Erised, she has to keep forcing her eyes open over and over again.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” she sighs eventually, and then gets up. She hugs Shane first, and then Ryan where he’s still at the other end of the couch. “Goodnight guys.”

“Night,” they both say, and she follows Jake’s route to the kitchen before disappearing into her own room and shutting the door behind her.

And then it’s just him and Ryan. As the knowledge that they’re finally alone together sinks in, Shane can feel his stomach grow hotter and hotter with anticipation and excitement and the darker edge of desire that he’s been keeping at bay for literal months. He pushes his feet a little more firmly into Ryan’s, and subtly stares over at him from out of the corner of his eye. Ryan looks gorgeous in the soft blue light of the movie, down to just the t-shirt that was under his hoodie and his jeans, hair still a mess, arms carefully tucked up against his chest. He can feel how warm Ryan is just between their socks, and imagines climbing over to him until they’re completely slotted together, head to toe, foreheads pressed together. His gut tightens lower than before and he shifts a little, trying to calm himself down. He feels more awake than he ever has in his entire fucking life.

He’s still trying to figure out when to make a move- and _how_ to, Jesus alive- when Ryan takes a deep breath and turns away from the movie. He smiles cutely at Shane from across the couch and lets his arms drop into his lap.

“Tonight was really fun.”

The overwhelming heat in his stomach settles into something sweeter, and Shane smiles back at him, moving their feet left to right. “Yeah, it was! I had a great time.”

“Really? Even though you don’t believe in ghosts?”

“Yeah, man. That house is amazing to look through, ghosts or no. All that architecture and furnishing that’s been preserved after all these years and in an earthquake hotspot? That’s fucking amazing. I’d pay double what we did just to be able to look around and admire the way she built that mansion.”

“Nerd.” Ryan pushes against his feet. “That’s all you cared about? Was the architecture?”

“Nah- it was fun watching you get scared every time a floorboard creaked. Or when we were in the Hall of Fires and the wind made all the chimneys groan and moan and you almost screamed. I’d pay for all four of our tickets to see that again. Priceless, if you ask me.”

Ryan leans his head back and laughs, forcefully low to keep from waking the other two up, but a full, round laugh nonetheless. Shane aches to press a kiss into the underside of his jaw. When he looks back up, eyes twinkling and face all open and soft, Shane’s breath hitches. Very audibly, even under the noise of the movie.

If Ryan hears it, he doesn’t outwardly show it. He just smiles and smiles at Shane. “I should have known that you’d still thrive off of my terror at an actual location. I thought you might give me some sympathy outside of the comfort of the library, but I guess I was wrong.”

Shane means to say something like: “Yeah, you for sure thought wrong, I’m never not going to find how terrified you are of ghosts to be funny,” or even: “That house wasn’t even haunted, Ryan, and our tour guide was the biggest liar in the world. I had to find joy in some part of the tour.” but what he ends up saying is:

“I can’t help it- you’re so fucking cute when you get super clingy.”

Well. So much for sliding into things. Even though he only had the bare bones of a plan on how to get himself to kiss Ryan Bergara on this night, none of it involved Shane blurting out something stupid and cheesy like what he just did. Ah, well. He guesses it can only go up from here. Unless Ryan tells him he’s weird and should fuck off immediately, then-

Ryan’s smile turns sharp, and his eyes blink open slowly, like he’s sleepy. But from across the couch, Shane can see that same intense, hungry look entering his eyes that he had on in the basement of the Mystery House, and he feels his mouth water at the sight of it. His fingers curl absently into the fabric of his jeans.

“So that’s what really does it for you, huh?”

Shane blinks, brain trying to speed up and slow down at the same time. “What?”

“That’s what does it for you? Me acting like a damsel in distress?”

“Not really-”

“That only happens when I’m really scared. I think you know better than most people that I can and will fight someone if I have to.”

Shane laughs quietly; he thinks about freaking out, but what’s the point? Instead he goes for honesty. “It’s not you being scared and ‘helpless’ or whatever. It’s you being clingy and touchy. You remember that afternoon I crawled under the table and cried on your leg, right?”

Ryan’s heated look dims a little. “Of course. I was really worried about you.”

“It’s never been about you being all scared and twitchy.” Shane takes a small breath, and then presses the soles of their feet together more deliberately. “I don’t know if you’ve really ever noticed, but you’re a very touchy person. You like to touch people to show you’re listening or there for them or excited or whatever’s going on. And you like people touching you when they’re excited or you’re feeling upset or scared or tired.”

Ryan nods a little. “I usually never think about it in the moment, but I know that I’m a tactile person.”

“It’s cute,” Shane tells him, cheeks flushing a little with the confession. “None of my friends are super touchy-feely and I didn’t even know I liked that until I met you. When you touch me, it feels really nice. The way you touch people reflects your personality a lot: warm, open, inviting, genuine, enthusiastic. And it goes both ways- even if you’re touching me because you’re excited or nervous or upset, it gives me something, too. It makes me feel like you trust me enough to share whatever’s happening with you, and that you want me to be apart of it, whether it’s to have me get excited about something with you or help you when you need it.”

Ryan’s staring at him in amazement, his face a combination of surprise and heat. It makes Shane squirm again, like he’s going to burst if he doesn’t get his hands on Ryan in the next two seconds.

Shane continues, and lets his clear infatuation with Ryan leak into his voice and onto his face. Ryan’s eyes dart down to his mouth when he licks his lips before speaking. “Tonight was the same way. I mean, it was kind of cute to see you get all jumpy and freaked about the wind and some fakeass stories about that lady chatting with Sarah Winchester herself, God rest her soul, but holding your hand was nice. I liked having you pressed up against me when you got scared or holding onto my hands tighter. It was your way of telling me that you trusted me to keep you safe even though you could take the entire football team down without even trying.”

“Shane Madej,” Ryan whispers, and Shane moves a foot until he’s softly stroking the delicate bone on Ryan’s ankle.

They share a look across the couch, the distance between them feeling like nothing and everything, and Shane gives Ryan a small, helpless smile.

“For the record, I’d pay hundreds of dollars to spend a night holding your hand. That, I think, is truly priceless.”

A weird, choked-off whine leaves Ryan’s mouth, and Shane feels it when he feet twitch and press harshly into his own. Ryan’s got a tight grip on the couch cushion underneath him, and Shane is about to ask if he actually did fuck up or took it too far, if Ryan wants him to leave, when Ryan says:

“You’ve got until the count of five.”

Shane jerks a little and looks at him in confusion. “For what?”

“Five-” Ryan jerks his legs away from Shane’s and pulls himself up until he’s kneeling on the couch, hands out in front of him, and the look on his face is molten. “Four-”

“Ryan, what are you doing?”

Ryan blinks at him, and then crawls all the way across the couch to where Shane is frozen, saying, “ _Three two fucking one_ , you fucking cheesy asshole,” and then before Shane can ask again what’s going on, Ryan gets right into his lap, curls his hands into Shane’s shirt, and presses their mouths together.

Shane stares at Ryan’s closed eyelids for a solid five seconds, trying to figure out what the fuck just happen _ed_ and what the fucking is happen _i_ _ng_ , and then Ryan shoves a hand into the back of his hair to move his head into place and Shane realizes that he’s  _fucking kissing Ryan Steven Bergara_ , and his brain reboots.

Shane surges forward as much as he can and tucks his long, dumb arms around Ryan’s hips to pull him closer. They end up chest to chest and Ryan makes an approving sound against his mouth that Shane can’t help but echo. Ryan is hot everywhere, on his waist, under his shirt where some of Shane’s fingers have slid to, where his hands are clenched in Shane’s shirt and hair, where he’s seated perfectly on Shane’s thighs, and especially where his lips are pushed firmly against Shane’s. It’s almost overwhelming, being able to touch so much of him at once and having the cloying, heady scent of oranges and pineapple and coconut so, so close to him. Shane’s breath turns ragged almost immediately, and when the thought of Ryan tasting as sweet as he smells enters his head, he instinctively tightens his hold on Ryan, fingers digging into his lower back.

Ryan gasps against his mouth and Shane takes a second to pull back and breathe, head spinning wonderfully and heart beating so fast that he thinks he might actually be hyperventilating.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Shane grits out. He doesn’t dare open his eyes, knowing that if he gets a look at Ryan’s kiss-bruised mouth so soon that he’s going to do something embarrassing. “ _Jesus fucking Christ_ , fucking finally, oh my God.”

Ryan laughs against him, kissing his bottom lip softly. “We could have been doing this for weeks, dumbass.”

Shane keens. “We could have been doing this since the goddamn second I met you, Ryan.”

Ryan pulls him in again and this kiss is even better because Shane is ready for it, knows what he wants to do with his mouth and hands. He pulls Ryan as close as he can get and pushes his hands all the way under his shirt until he’s touching the smooth, warm expanse of Ryan’s back. He can feel the dimples in his spine, right above the waistline of his jeans, and his head takes off into an image of him bending to press kisses to them. This thought gets interrupted as soon as it starts when Ryan gives his hair a soft yank, sharp enough to make Shane gasp again, and then licks into his open mouth.

Shane is losing his fucking mind, can’t think about anything but the fact that he was right, he was  _so_ right, Ryan tastes so fucking sweet, and he angles his head to be able to reach and taste every single part of Ryan’s mouth. Shane’s hands move from Ryan’s back to clutch at his ribs, thumbs pressing firmly into his quivering belly, and Ryan releases the hottest, breathiest noise that Shane has ever had the privilege of hearing. It makes the warm ball in his gut tighten and leak, and he distantly realizes that he’s .2 seconds away from popping a boner with Ryan sitting directly in his lap.

“Ryan-” he manages to pull away just enough to say his name, but Ryan just chases after him, arms curling tightly around Shane’s neck. It’s maybe a lot super cute. “Ryan, I’m gonna- _Christ_ \- I’m gonna have a, a problem really soon, if we don’t-”

Ryan makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a growl and takes one of Shane’s hands off of his side and shoves it down. After Shane takes another deep breath and tries to make himself calm down a little, he suddenly realizes that his palm is being pressed against the front of Ryan’s jeans and  _he can feel Ryan’s dick, what the entire fuck-_

“You mean a problem like this?” Ryan asks; his other hand is back in Shane’s hair, and he uses it to pull Shane’s head back until his pale, unblemished neck is proudly on display. Ryan kisses his way down from Shane’s mouth to the hinge of his jaw, and this across his throat. “I’m already a step ahead of you, big guy.”

“I can see that,” Shane gasps, and because this is apparently going to be a thing, squeezes gently. “Well- feel that.”

Ryan moans sharply, hips jerking up into his hand. “Fuck, do that again.”

Shane does, fitting his entire hand around Ryan’s hardening cock, and squeezes more firmly, making sure that Ryan feels every single centimeter of his hand closing around him. Ryan rocks against his hand, smothering another moan into Shane’s neck, and Shane uses his free hand to encourage Ryan to move forwards. When he pulls, Ryan moves his hips forwards, and Shane grinds the heel of his hand down onto the front of Ryan’s jeans. While Ryan is rocking against his hand, one pressed down on top of Shane’s to hold his hand in place and the other one clutching tightly onto his shirt again, Shane takes a turn kissing down his neck. Ryan is biting onto his lip to try and stifle any noises, head tilted back, and Shane uses the opportunity to suck a little mark behind Ryan’s ear, and then under his jaw, and then at the base of his throat, right under his Adam’s apple.

“ _Ah-_ people are gonna- gonna know what we’re doing if you mark me up.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m doing it,” Shane offers, soothing the small hickey with his tongue. “It’s not like our friends don’t already know.”

“Oh, you’re rig-  _Jesus, Shane_ -”

Shane grins against Ryan’s neck and shushes him. “Ry, you’re going to wake Jake and Daysha up if you don’t stop.”

Ryan pulls back until they’re finally looking at each other again, the first time since he kissed Shane, and Shane’s breath catches in his throat. Ryan looks like he’s on fire, hair even more of a mess, neck blooming with love bites, lips swollen and cherry red, and eyes glassy with arousal. He looks even better than Shane imagined he would during the nights that he let himself jerk off to the thought of Ryan, looks even better than Shane could have ever let himself hope for.

“Then you better shut me up,” he says, and with their eyes still connected, grinds up slowly into Shane’s hand. Shane tries not to groan, pressing his lips together in a thin, tight line. “You know how hard it is not to beg you to touch me with with those big hands of yours, Madej? Every single time I see you, all I can think about is you holding me down with those fucking paws and taking what you want from me.”

“Holy shit,” Shane says, and his hips buck up without his permission. “Fuck, Ryan.”

“Yes, fuck Ryan,” Ryan says. “And you know what, I think you’re onto something.”

Ryan puts both of their hands back onto his sides, and then without warning, grinds down onto Shane’s lap where his dick is starting to strain against the front of his jeans. Feeling how hard Ryan is against him is probably what it feels like to have lightning strike you, and Shane has to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from whimpering. It feels so, so good and so, so hot like every other part of Ryan, and Shane already feels like he’s seconds away from coming just from touching Ryan and Ryan grinding both of their cocks together through their jeans, like they’re fucking teenagers.

He points this out, trying to keep his voice quiet and steady even as Ryan begins to rock down against him and make more of those infuriatingly hot, breathy noises.

“So, is this how it’s gonna go down? Us grinding together and coming in our pants like a couple of fifteen year olds?”

Ryan huffs out a laugh, mouth pressed against Shane’s forehead. “Unless you want to get on your knees and suck me off, Squatch.”

The image of him on his knees, sucking Ryan off, Ryan’s hands in his hair and thighs trembling around Shane’s head, makes his dick throb in his jeans and he grinds up eagerly.

“I would love to suck you off,” Shane pants, and it’s all he can see, all he wants as soon as possible. “I want to suck you off really badly, holy shit, would you let me?”

Ryan groans, and at the back of his mind, Shane knows they need to be quieter, or Jake and Daysha will actually wake up and probably kill them, but Ryan makes it hard for him to fucking breathe right, let alone have good morals and an intelligent thinking process.

He rocks down again, and then laughs again under his breath. “Not tonight, baby- I want to take my time with you.”

When Shane calls Ryan baby, he usually means it in a joking, dorky way, something to make Ryan laugh, but when Ryan calls  _him_ baby, all sweet and deep and backed up by the drag of his hips, it makes Shane feel like he’s burning up under all of the layers of his clothes and his own skin.

“Hate to break it to you-” Shane mumbles, words clumsy in between their kissing. “But time is not really something we’re gonna have tonight. I’m already getting close.”

“ _Already_?” Ryan teases, as if he also isn’t getting a little sloppier and a little more desperate. “Damn, I really am that good.”

“How could I not already be close?” Shane asks him, hips moving faster and faster, almost out of his control. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Ry. So, so beautiful. Taking what  _you_ want from me. Anyone who doesn’t lose their mind the second they look at you is a fucking idiot.”

“Shane-” Ryan makes a small hiccupping noise and grinds down as hard as he can, so hard that Shane sees sparks. He feels overwhelmed by the smell of Ryan and the hot brand of his hands against Shane’s shoulders and the equally hot brand of their cocks pushing against each other.

They kiss each other frantically for a few more minutes, words lost somewhere in between their tongues and clutching fingers. Everything narrows down to the two of them getting off together, to the smell of Ryan’s orangey cologne and the way he keeps whining against Shane’s pliant mouth and the way he pushes Shane’s hand down until he’s holding onto Ryan’s ass, encouraging him to grab. Shane accidentally squeezes on a particularly hard grind and Ryan curses against his mouth and Shane realizes that he’s going to  _come._

“Fuck, oh my God, Ryan, I’m gonna-” and before the words can even leave his mouth, his orgasm slams into him from out of nowhere and he has to crush their mouths together to deafen his long, obscene moaning. The unpleasant sensation of coming into his boxers is marginally overtaken by the intensity of his orgasm, and all Shane can do is moan into Ryan’s mouth and hold on while he rides it out.

He doesn’t even notice that Ryan is using his hand to grind against again until he comes, too, hiding his face in Shane’s shoulder and gritting out his name. Shane blinks the stars out of his eyes in time to watch Ryan fall apart, eyes fluttering and teeth biting around his button down shirt. It takes Ryan a while to pull himself together, but when he pulls away from his shoulder, Shane wonders if he’ll be able to get hard again in record time. Ryan looks fucking incredible, even better than when Shane looked at him after kissing him for the first time, with his hair an even wilder mess and his eyes a molten amber and his cheeks sex-flushed. Shane can’t believe this guy is  _his._

They stare at each other while getting their breathing under control, and Shane can’t help but ask, just to be sure- “You’re going to be my boyfriend now, right?”

And Ryan just laughs, exhausted and overspilling with love, and nods. “Of course, dude. I’d be insane to let you go.”

Shane wiggles his eyebrows. “Because I’m the master at sex?”

Ryan snorts, but then his face goes all gooey and heart-stoppingly sweet and he says: “Nah, because you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met. And I’m kind of insanely in love with you.” 

There’s a moment of silence, and then Shane blinks because his eyes are getting kind of heavy and stingy and he thinks he might cry, but he doesn’t look away from Ryan, just grins at him and cups his face with his big hands and tells him: “Holy shit, I’m so in love with you, Ryan Bergara. I don’t think you even know how much.”

“I bet you my life savings I do, all $30 of it,” Ryan tells him, voice also hitching and going a little funny, and then leans down to give Shane a soft kiss. Shane is so unbelievably happy that he  _does_ end up crying, just a little, but it turns out to be okay because while Ryan is wiping away his tears, he lets out a few of his own that Shane wipes away, and really, how the fuck did the universe make two people who fit so perfectly together and let them meet each other? Shane doesn’t know how he got so goddamn lucky, is a nihilist by nature, but thinks that even if life is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, the way Ryan feels in the tight circle of his arms and the way he says the words ‘I’m in love with you.’ means absolutely everything.

They kiss for a while, until they can’t keep their eyes open, and then Ryan unsteadily get to his feet and holds out his hands.

“C’mon- it’s time for bed. You can go home in the morning, okay?”

“Okay.” Shane says, as if he’d ever pass up the opportunity to fall asleep next to the most beautiful man alive on the planet.

They shut the TV off and throw their trash away before creeping down the hallway to Ryan’s room. They don’t hear any noises coming from Daysha and Jake’s rooms, and Ryan’s shoulders relax, which Shane takes as a good sign. When they get into Ryan’s room, Shane is monumentally unsurprised to see that there’s a night light plugged into the wall next to Ryan’s unmade bed. It’s bright enough that they don’t need to turn the light on to see where they’re going, and Ryan pulls him over to his closet.

“I have some boxers you can borrow,” he says quietly, and rifles through the top draw of his in-closet dresser to find some. “I also have a pair of sweatpants and a shirt you can borrow. They might be a little small, but they got all loose and unshaped from being washed so many times so they should at least be comfortable.”

They take turns going into the bathroom to clean up, and then crawl into Ryan’s bed together. Shane wonders if Ryan is gonna push him into the big spoon position, guessing that his boyfriend ( _!!!!!boyfriend!!!!!! what the fuck!!!!!!!)_ probably likes to be held. But when Ryan just moves to lay down on his back, Shane takes the opportunity to crawl up and snuggle against Ryan’s chest, long limbs draped across his entire body. Ryan laughs and drags a hand through Shane’s messy hair, and Shane melts into him, forehead pressed against Ryan’s collarbones.

“I should have known you’d be an octopus cuddler,” Ryan whispers, and continues to play with his hair. “You’re so cute.”

“I get it from you.” Shane slurs. He’s going to fall asleep as soon as he lets himself relax enough to do so.

Ryan laughs again and rolls a little, until Shane is pressed entirely to his front and Ryan has his face buried in Shane’s hair. It feels so fucking nice, being wrapped up in Ryan’s arms and tucking his face into Ryan’s chest, and Shane hopes like hell that this isn’t some elaborate dream he’s having.

“Good night,” Ryan whispers to him, kissing the crown of his head. “Just a reminder before we fall asleep: I’m hopelessly in love with you.”

Warmth spreads out across Shane’s entire body, starting in his chest, and he grins stupidly against Ryan’s sternum.

“I love you too, Ryan. Good night.”

**_~.~.~_ **

Shane drifts into consciousness the next morning, feeling pliant and soft and warm in a way that he’s never felt before. It feels wonderful, and when he heaves in a deep breath and then lets it go, he’s soothed by the scent of oranges and fabric softener.

And then he hears it, whatever probably woke him up-

The shutter of a camera going off.

Shane cracks an eye open and looks up and up until he finds Jake and Daysha standing over him, phones out and faces split into matching grins. It takes him a second to remember where he is and who he’s in bed with, and then it all comes rushing back: holding hands with Ryan at the Sarah Winchester Mystery House and then coming home with him and Ryan kissing him and them grinding on the couch like a pair of idiot teenagers and then them proclaiming their love for each other and crawling into bed.

He groans and re-buries his face into Ryan’s chest, trying and failing to hide from their unwanted guests somewhere under Ryan’s bulging arm muscles.

“What the fuck are you two doing?”

Jake cooes and takes another picture. “Well, sunshine, Daysha and I went to make breakfast- a Sunday morning tradition in this big, gay household- and she noticed that your shoes were by the door and your jacket was still slung over the back of the couch from last night and we decided to do some investigating when it was clear that you weren’t on the couch or in the bathroom.”

Shane breathes in and out a few times, Ryan’s scent lulling him into a false sense of security. “What if we had been naked when you came in?”

“Minor issue,” Daysha says flippantly. “You know, a small price to pay, a sacrifice we were willing to make, blah, blah, blah.”

Shane smirks, knowing that they can’t see him. “You know, nothing about me is actually that small, but thank you for your concern.”

“That’s disgusting.” Daysha groans, and flicks him on the arm. “Shane Madej, you are officially uninvited to breakfast.”

“I know how to make banana foster french toast.”

“...You are not uninvited to breakfast. But you’ll get water poured over you if you and Terminator don’t get up and help us out.”

Ryan suddenly makes a distressed noise, his first one of the morning (kind of), and tightens his hold on Shane. “Can you two fuck off? Can’t you see that we’re canoodling? And sleeping? It’s, like, 7 A.M.”

“It’s actually almost 10 A.M., but go off, I guess.”

“Jake, I’ll literally stab you with my spirit box.”

“I bet that’s what you told Shane last night.”

“Oh my fucking God.” Ryan finally pulls away from Shane to glare up at his brother. When Shake opens his eyes again, he can see Jake’s shiteating grin, and tries not to laugh. “Fine, fine, we’ll get up and help you. Just give us a second, yeah? Christ, we’ve only been asleep for like, five hours.”

Jake snorts. “That’s no one’s fault but your own. I don’t know what exactly happened and I bet I don’t want to know, but I can say for sure that that’s on you for getting such little sleep.”

Shane lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, but getting confirmation that the other two didn’t hear them getting off last night makes him feel a little less like a gross weirdo.

“Thanks,” Ryan grouches, and Jake finally takes the hint, pulling Daysha with him towards the door.

“You two better be in the kitchen in ten minutes or I’m going to come in and egg you. I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ryan waves at him, smushing his face back into Shane’s hair, and the two finally leave them to go into the kitchen. “Goddamn. I didn’t know that our blooming relationship was going to become such a huge fuckin’ spectacle.”

Shane laughs. “You think Jake and Daysha are bad? The others at school have a betting pool going on. I’m not really sure what the bets are, but I’ve seen Keith and Eugene trade some money before and heard Steven vaguely mention something about why betting on one option would be economically smarter than the other option.”

“Awesome.” Ryan says sarcastically, and then, after a few breaths, pulls his face away from Shane’s hair again to look at him. Their eyes meet, and Ryan smiles, slow and sweet. “Hi.”

Shane is absolutely fucking gone for him. “Hi.”

“You’re still my boyfriend, right?”

“Yes, Ryan, I’m still your boyfriend.”

Ryan laughs like he can’t believe it, and then cups a hand around Shane’s face, thumb pressed against his cheek. “And you still love me, right?”

Shane softens, and he scoots up to kiss Ryan’s chin. “Yeah, Ry- I still love you. I’ve been in love with you for months, pal.”

Ryan laughs again. “Me too. I love you, too.”

The words make his skin prickle, and Shane wants to stay cocooned in bed with Ryan all day, wants to keep his face pressed against the warm slant of his collarbones and feel Ryan run a hand through his hair and tell him he loves him on a constant loop. But the thought of Jake and Daysha making another appearance- this time possibly with eggs- makes him stir, and he sighs against Ryan’s throat.

“We should probably get up before they come back and throw all of our breakfast supplies at us.”

“Yeah, we should,” Ryan agrees. He gives Shane another sweet smile, and then gives him an equally sweet kiss on his forehead. Shane closes his eyes and tries to memorize the warm press of lips against his skin.

They help each other out of Ryan’s insanely comfortable bed and stumble towards the kitchen together, Shane rubbing sleep out of his eyes and Ryan stubbornly curling his arms back around Shane’s waist. When they spill into the kitchen, Jake and Daysha look up to see Shane trying to fix his hair a little and Ryan pressing his face into Shane’s back.

“Hey!” Jake says sharply, and Shane turns to look at him in bewilderment; Ryan turns to look at him, too, albeit a lot slower, and they both stare at Jake and wait for a follow-up statement. Shane thinks Jake is going to tell them to separate or tell them to stop being gross, but instead, he gives them both a big, cheesy grin. “Congrats, guys.”

“Yeah, congrats on finally getting your shit together,” Daysha echoes, and then hands Shane a banana. “I know you know how to handle this. Celebrate getting with Ryan by being useful.”

“Yes, sir.” Shane says obediently, and sets off to peel and cut up some bananas for their french toast.

“Ryan Bergara, let go of your boyfriend for two seconds to come and fry up some bacon. Then you can go back to being a clingy bastard.”

“Fine,  _M_ _om_ ,” Ryan sasses, but does let go after giving Shane’s hips a small squeeze. Then he stops, looks back at Shane, and smiles so widely that it has to hurt. “Hey, you’re my boyfriend.”

Shane maybe chokes up a little, but grins back to hide it. “Hey, you’re my boyfriend.”

“Good God,” Jake sighs, but his happy look doesn’t dim even a little bit.

All in all, it turns out to be one of the best mornings of Shane’s life. Making breakfast with the Bergara/Edewi clan and messing around while eating it is extremely fun and a tradition Shane hopes to attend every Sunday possible, and watching movies with them all day with Ryan tucked into his side is even better. Every time he remembers that he can kiss Ryan, he feels himself grin like a moron. Jake notices and tells him to “Calm the fuck down and stop thinking with your dick, Jesus, man, that’s my  _brother_ ,” but Shane can tell that he’s ridiculously happy for them, and is happy because Ryan is happy, and he hopes that he’ll always be able to feel this full of happiness and warmth with Ryan and his family.

**_~.~.~_ **

If Shane’s friends thought that he was bad when he wasn’t dating Ryan, it’s extremely worse when they  _do_ start dating.

Now that Shane has free reign to kiss Ryan and hold his hand and hang off of him and tell him he loves him fifty times a day, Shane stops holding back. He goes over to Ryan’s table constantly just to see how he’s doing and pushes his hands through Ryan’s hair and kisses him when none of the other students are looking. Ryan always comes up to the help desk before leaving to kiss Shane goodbye, and in between visits, gets to hear renditions of Shane’s lovesick pining from everyone- Sara included. They all admit that they took it too far once and Shane tells him that’s why he came to hide out that one day, and Ryan gets playfully protective while also not being playful at all and it makes them all coo at Shane once he’s gone. Ryan easily fits into their full group, and the others start to include him in their incessant whining about Shane and Ryan being ‘too cute’.

“You guys literally badgered me about asking Ryan out so much that it made me cry, and now you’re complaining that we’re being _too_  cute? What the fuck.”

“You’re too good for each other,” Keith whines. “Even Ned and Ariel look kinda shitty next to you guys. You’re setting the bar too high for everyone else.”  

Ryan raises his eyebrows up as high as they will go, and Shane  _just barely_ keeps himself from getting up from his desk chair to kiss his forehead. “I don’t think that’s us being unfair, I think that’s just karma. Anyone who makes Shane Madej cry is destined to get their ass kicked, whether it’s by me or the universe.”

“See?” Keith groans again and buries his face into his hands, but Shane can see his smile peeking out at the sides.

Ryan snorts, and then after a moment, reaches out to thump Keith on the back. “Maybe we should go have a chat somewhere else and I can teach you how to ask Becky Miller out without her One Punch Manning your balls.”

Shane thinks that Keith is probably going to tell Ryan to fuck off or say something along the lines of him never, ever getting the chance to ask Becky out, but Keith surprises him when he pulls his face away from his hands, gives Ryan the ultimate puppy face, and whispers, “Please, Bergara- I’ll do anything. If you can start a relationship with Dense Ass Madej, you can do anything.”

The conversation ends with Ryan promising the teach Keith how to woo Becky on the condition that he never says anything mean to Shane ever again, and if Shane hadn’t already confessed his undying love for Ryan, that would have done it. And then, when the shift ends and Keith somehow,  _somefuckinghow_ gets Becky Miller’s number after months and months of pining after her, Keith ends up proclaiming his undying love for Ryan. Shane thinks he should be mad that Keith is asking for Ryan’s hand in marriage, but he mostly finds it hilarious, and lets Keith run his mouth about how Ryan is the eighth wonder of the world because it’s not exactly like he disagrees.

“He got Madej to pull his head out of his ass, he got Keith to pull his head out of his ass- this dude is fucking magical,” Andrew tells them all one day, when they’re having a ‘family reunion’ around the help desk. “Is that why you believe in ghosts? Are you actually a wizard?”

“I fucking wish.” Ryan laughs.

“Those two are a dangerous combination.” Zach waves a hand in between Shane and Ryan, a space that is almost nonexistent. “Shane is at the top of our class and Ryan is apparently a warlock or some shit. The true power couple. Why did we encourage this, y’all?”

Shane gives him an unimpressed look that makes Eugene grin, which in turn makes Shane grin; now that Ryan is his boyfriend, Eugene has deemed him intelligent enough to be real friends with.

“I know you guys placed bets.” Shane announces. “You did everything in your power to get us together, so I don’t want to hear about us being ‘too powerful’ or whatever bullshit Ned started and then Keith corroborated.”

“You’re goddamn right we placed bets.” Ned gives him a look that encompasses the general mood of Shane and Ryan’s long-awaited relationship. “We needed something to keep us going while you two dragged this shit out for literal months.”

Ryan snorts, and leans closer to wrap his hand around Shane’s wrist. “Listen to that, baby. They were all so obsessed with us that they turned our relationship into the fucking Kentucky Derby.” 

“What were the bets even on?” Shane asks, moving his arm so that he can hold Ryan’s hand.

“On how long it would take you two to get your shit together,” Eugene tells them. “We broke it up into weeks and everyone bet on how many from that date it would take for Shane to break down and confess his undying love for Ryan.”

Shane smiles, amused to no end. “Who ended up winning?”

Steven rolls his eyes and makes a big show of sighing. “Well, at first, Jen, Eugene, and I won, because we all guessed around five to six weeks, and everyone else guessed either two weeks or something ridiculous like ten or twelve.”

“You saw them,” Andrew says hotly. “Don’t say my guess was ridiculous, Steven Lim. _Those two_ were ridiculous. I’ll square up with you even though I love you.”

“Chill out, babe.” Steven gives Shane a long-suffering look. “Anyways, the three of us won initially-”

“Until Quinta pointed out that she was actually the winner.” Jen finishes, exasperated. “Because not only did she guess the right amount of weeks, but she also guessed that it would be  _Ryan_  who made the first move, not Shane.”  

“Oh, did she?” Ryan asks, laughing.

“You fucking bet I did.” Quinta appears out of nowhere, as usual, but instead of looking like she’s going to kill all of them for hanging out at the help desk, she’s grinning. “These dumbasses never even took into account the idea of you fixing this whole mess. I saw you two together all the time and the way you’d stare at Shane when he walked back to the help desk or if he was helping someone out. I knew you’d break first, since you’re not as much of a helpless fool. No offense, Madej.”

Shane shrugs. “Nothing you’re saying is wrong, boss.”

“Exactly. That’s how my ass got $70 for doing nothing but using my common sense. You know how satisfying it is to sucker $10 from seven different Dean’s List students? It’s fucking liberating."

She laughs and then struts away again, not even bothering to stay and listen to the others try and talk their way out of the truth. Keith, Zach, Ned, Eugene, Steven, Andrew, and Jen all look forlorned at the mention of their lost money, and it leaves Shane, Ryan, and Sara to laugh at them.

“You didn’t bet on us?” Shane asks Sara.

“Nah- I knew I’d lose my money. And, besides, it was just as rewarding to watch you lay around at home and talk about Ryan is the most beautiful boy you’ve ever seen in your entire life and wax poetic about how he was always just out of reach like the brightest star in the sky or some hopeless romantic shit like that. In all honesty, it was worth more than $70.”

“Lucky.” Eugene pouts.

“Thanks, Sara. I really wanted everyone to know about that.”

“I think it’s cute,” Ryan says sweetly, and then cranes his neck over the desk to give Shane a kiss. “You’re really cute.”

“Please stop,” Keith says, sounding like he just went through the garbage disposal, and in response, Ryan grabs the back of Shane’s head and makes a bunch of loud kissing noises without actually kissing him super deeply. All Shane can do is play along and laugh against his lips.

Even with their friends constantly up their asses about Shane and Ryan spending too much time together and being sickeningly adorable, they still get to have alone time and continue on with their snatches of ghost hunting while Shane is on shift. He still finds a way to spend ten minutes here and there talking about the possibility of Mothman being real and whether or not William Desmond Taylor was killed while being hugged or while having hands held up in the air in the surrender pose. Sometimes, he crawls under Ryan’s table and lays against his leg, just like that one afternoon, and Ryan gives him an earbud and runs his hand through Shane’s hair as discreetly as he can.

It’s comforting and makes Shane feel warm from his head to his toes, thinking about how far they’ve come since Shane started finding the stacks of books Ryan used to leave all over his table. Sometimes, while he’s shelving books, he thinks about how fate is funny and gave him someone who he used to think was in insane for believing that the Whaley House is haunted and now thinks is the best thing since sliced bread. He loves that even after the months of wishing and hoping and the night of the Sarah Winchester Mystery House and the handful of weeks that have passed since then, they still feel like the skeptic and believer who bonded over Ryan’s obsession with Bigfoot and the Zodiac Killer.

Shane has a soft spot for conspiracy theories now, and it’s probably why he interrupts Ryan’s actual study time to talk about a cold case. He’s putting books away in the Language section, and in between going back and forth being books in German, Spanish, Latin, and Korean, he’s watching Ryan spiral. He’d told Shane with no small amount of sadness that he actually had to come in and study for his Statistics midterm and didn’t have much time to spend researching the Zodiac Killer or marathon  _Ancient Aliens_. And now Ryan is struggling through his Stats study guide; he’s is pretty sure he hasn’t seen Ryan this devoid of emotion since Shane convinced him to watch  _Brokeback Mountain_ for the first time and he claimed to feel “utterly betrayed, you sick son of a bitch.”

So, Shane thinks on instinct, and slips into the printer/copy room for a few seconds before slipping out again. In the Language section, he’s close enough to be able to successfully throw paper airplanes onto Ryan’s table, but not close enough to be able to talk to him at an acceptable level. He thinks about the few cold cases he knows details about, and when he remembers a good one, starts writing facts about it onto a piece of paper and folds into an airplane.

The first one says  _You know about the D. B. Cooper case, right? I think you should cover that one next_ and he sends it over to Ryan’s desk as best as he can. It lands a little too far to the left, but Ryan sees it anyways. He blinks at it a few times and looks around the library, but Shane hides in between the books- he wants to enjoy this for a little bit before Ryan catches him. He watches Ryan unfold the plane and read over the message, nose scrunching up cutely, and when he’s done, Shane starts in on the next one.

The planes are sent over the course of ten minutes because Shane has to keep laying low and waiting for Ryan to turn back to his Stats work before sending the next one. He sends  _Did you know that D. B. Cooper wrote “No funny stuff, or I’ll do the job.” in his heist note to the captain of the airplane he was on? Isn’t that fucking badass?, He put on these cool wrap-around sunglasses before jumping from the plane, but also took off his clip-on tie and threw it over his shoulder, so was it really that cool?, I think D. B. Cooper sounds better than Dan Cooper bc Dan sounds like that smartass kid in your science class who thinks that all human beings are inferior to the gods of Chemistry and nucleotides so good job @ whoever fucked up that detail,_ and  _Do you think D. B. Cooper ever called himself the Phantom of the Sky?_ before he finally lets Ryan see where he’s throwing the paper airplanes from.

After the one about the Phantom of the Sky lands on Ryan’s textbook and he finally sees Shane laughing silently from the Language section, he abandons his homework immediately. Luckily, there’s no one else in the aisle with them when Ryan gets there because he doesn’t hesitate to hook his arms around Shane’s neck and pull him down for a kiss.

“You’re really something else, Shane Madej,” Ryan laughs, and gives him another kiss. “Distracting me with the D. B. Cooper case when you know I’m trying to cram for Stats. You  _want_  me to fail.”

Shane thinks about joking that Ryan is going to fail anyways since he binge-watched all of  _Ghost Hunters_ instead of spreading his studying out over a few weeks, but then he takes in the fact that Ryan looks happy to be alive for the first time in almost two hours, and reconsiders. He pretty much blurts out:

“Nah, I just wanted to see you smile again. I know how much you hate Statistics, and I knew that a cold case would turn that frown upside down.”

Ryan’s face melts and Shane feels his heart go with it.

“You went out of your way to send me notes about D. B. Cooper because you knew Stats was ruining my life?”

“Of course, Ry. Nothing makes you happier than a cold case and a wild story to back it up.”

“You make me the happiest,” Ryan tells him, all smiley and gooey. “You giant sap.”

“I’m the sap?” Shane asks, laughing, and then because he can, leans down to kiss Ryan soundly.

They get a little carried away and kiss each other more than a few times. As their mouths meet for kiss maybe-#5-but-probably-#8, Shane instinctively holds up the textbook in his hands to shield them from the public’s innocent eyes. He feels more than sees Ryan open his eyes, and only opens his own when Ryan giggles against his teeth.

“You’re hiding us behind a French book,” Ryan tells him, and Shane looks up to confirm. They are 100% being blocked by a book all about French food and culture. “Are you trying to insinuate something?”

Ryan gives his bottom lip a small, kittenish lick with his tongue, but Shane is so attuned to everything that Ryan does that it feels the same as if Ryan had licked right into his mouth. He groans a little and curls a hand into the front of Ryan’s hoodie.

“I’m not sure. Maybe you can use some of your limited knowledge on Statistics to let me know if we’re about to-”

Ryan laughs, too loudly for the library’s standards, and slaps him on the chest. “Oh my God, shut up, Shane.”

Shane laughs back and lets Ryan pull him into another kiss. It’s a little sloppy because they’re both still snickering and smiling like a couple of morons, but it’s one of the best kisses Shane’s ever had.

He sends another silent thank-you out to Bigfoot, the Zodiac Killer, Sarah Winchester, and, of course, D. B. Cooper and his bitchin’ wrap-around sunglasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this last chapter!! That's officially a wrap on "show me what i'm looking for"! Thank you again for reading my fic and being so kind to me :") I hope you stick around for my future BFU fics (bc yall know I've got fics planned for these two idiots out the wahoozle) I'm not sure which one I'll start next but I think it will be the one that involves............ 
> 
> magic ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**Author's Note:**

> And chapter 1 is complete!!! Wooo!! I'm thinking (hoping) that this fic will end up being about 5 chapters long, based on how I have it all planned out, so stay tuned for chapter 2!!! I'm hoping to have it out soon but I work full time and am attending college classes still so it might not be as soon as I want it to be lololol but I'll try my best!!! 
> 
> Constructive criticism is always welcomed!!!! Thank you so much for reading!! :-)


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